The youth social media literacy inventory: Development and validation using item response theory in the US

Social media has opened new doors of opportunities and risks for youth. Potential risks include exposure to harmful content, engagement with strangers, or unwanted consequences from irresponsible or naive use. Social media literacy has been proposed as a way to mitigate such risks and promote positive ways of social media engagement. This paper aimed to develop a comprehensive Youth Social Media Literacy Inventory (YSMLI) to objectively assess young adolescents’ (9–13 years) knowledge and skills in the context of social media use. The development process included four consecutive steps: 1) an in-depth review of the literature to identify core competencies and domains of social media literacy, 2) creation of a large item pool that assesses these core competencies within six domains (advertising, cyberbullying, privacy, news, phishing, and media balance), 3) expert review and cognitive pretesting with youth, and 4) empirical validation of the final 90-item pool using item response theory based on a sample of n = 306 youth participants in the US. The final item bank is well-fitting, reliable, and valid, offering scales with varying lengths for different purposes including domain-specific assessment and parallel testing.