Published In

Applied Developmental Science

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-28-2026

Subjects

Youth -- Pychology

Abstract

Online civic engagement among young people may represent a form of positive youthdevelopment in digital spaces. However, its impacts on youth’s well-being remain unclear,partly due to a lack of validated measures that capture the unique features of the internetand incorporate youth voices. To address this gap, we developed and validated a scale ofmultidimensional online civic engagement for youth aged 15 to 25 years (MOCE-Y) using anexploratory sequential mixed-methods approach. Qualitative interviews with 12 youth sup-ported the multidimensional structure derived from literature, from which we developed aninitial 40-item scale. Exploratory (N ¼ 159) and confirmatory (N ¼ 244) factor analyses withtwo independent samples further validated the multidimensionality of the scale, consistingof civic behaviors and skills. The final 26-item scale demonstrated discriminant, criterion,and incremental validity as well as internal consistency. MOCE-Y lays the groundwork forfuture research on youth civic engagement online.

Rights

Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.1080/10888691.2026.2623250

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44480

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

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Included in

Psychology Commons

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