ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Psychological foundations of digital empowerment: development and preliminary validation of self-determination theory-based scale for female university students.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Inroduction: As higher education undergoes rapid digital transformation, digital empowerment has emerged as a pivotal psychological resource for student functioning. Existing instruments conceptualize empowerment narrowly as technical proficiency, and no psychometrically validated Arabic-language measure exists. Addressing both gaps, this study developed and preliminarily validated a Digital Empowerment Scale (DES) grounded in Self-Determination Theory. Methods: A sample of 248 female university students in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (M age = 21.0, SD = 2.85) completed a 19-item pool tapping psychological competence and autonomy, technical-cognitive competence, relatedness, and digital, ethical, and legal awareness. Given marked non-normality, confirmatory factor analyses employed WLSMV estimation. Results: A four-factor solution showed poor discriminant validity between the psychological and technical factors (HTMT = 0.92); a respecified three-factor model, after removal of one weak item, fit the data very well (CFI = 0.961, TLI = 0.954, RMSEA = 0.037, SRMR = 0.079). The final 18-item scale demonstrated adequate composite reliability (ω = 0.66-0.76) and clear discriminant validity (HTMT ≤ 0.43). Discussion: Pending criterion-related evidence and cross-validation in independent samples, the DES offers a parsimonious, theoretically anchored preliminary instrument for assessing digital empowerment among female university students.
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