Creating the “Aspects of Presenting Alcohol Related Posts on Facebook” Methodology for College Students
Creating the “Aspects of Presenting Alcohol Related Posts on Facebook” Methodology for College Students

Summary/Abstract: Background: Social networks, in particular Facebook, are part of the lives of almost every individual, and in addition to searching for people, making friends or communicating, they also enable self-presentation (photos, statuses, videos). Part of this, especially among young people, may be the presentation of risky forms of behavior (e.g. alcohol consumption) that may have direct (attitudes) or indirect (normative beliefs) effects on behavior. It has been found that contributions presenting alcohol use reinforce subsequent risk consumption in individuals who have seen such contributions. This is explained by the social pressure to conform to a certain type of behavior which is most often represented by friends who self-present and self-reveal on Facebook what they prefer (such as alcohol consumption and parties). Such a link between Facebook and alcohol is therefore elaborated in theory and quality. However, there is no known methodology from the literature to address the link. Objective: The aim was to prepare a methodology measuring the interconnection of Facebook and alcohol for the purposes of further investigation of the issue in the context of significant socio-psychological factors. Methods: A questionnaire consisting of socio-demographic variables (gender, age, university, year of study) and 38 items related to Facebook and alcohol linkage; which were: a) taken from conducted research (Alhabash et al., 2016); b) derived from the outlined topics (Huang et al., 2014; Westgate et al., 2014; Rodrique et al., 2016; Hutton et al., 2016; Barnes et al., 2016), which were qualitatively elaborated on through discussion in focus groups; c) supplemented by items that logically lacked and complemented the examined context (concerning the individual themselves and their contribution to Facebook, the general contribution of friends, the descriptive norms, and the truthfulness of the presented contributions on Facebook). The respondents’ task was to mark on the five-point Likert scale the extent to which they agree or disagree with a given statement (1 - strongly disagree; 5 – strongly agree). Research sample: The research sample consisted of 160 college students from Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (66.3%; n = 106) and Prešov University (33.8%; n = 54) (86.9% of women; M = 21.20; SD = 1.44). The respondents came mainly from the second and third year of study. The selection of the research sample was made on an occasional basis. The basic criterion for data collection was the willingness of both teachers and university students to participate in research. The response rate was 60%. Data collection was carried out at the beginning of 2016. Data analysis: Factor analysis (principal axis factoring) was used to reduce the number of items and reveal the factor structure of our methodology. Individual items were used for statistical analysis. Within the factor analysis, we followed the individual criteria for assigning items to the extracted factors: a) the correlation matrix's own numbers greater than 1; (b) factor charge of items with a minimum value of 0,5; (c) discarding items which have at least two saturation values ≥ 0.3; (d) discarding items that were conceptually unacceptable; e) The minimum number of items in the factor had to be 3. Results: Overall, factor analysis was performed three times due to the gradual exclusion of items due to failure to meet the criteria for inclusion in the factor. In the first step of the factor analysis, 11 factors were revealed, the scree plot revealed a fourth factor break. However, 19 items were excluded based on non-compliance. In a second step, the principal axis factoring analysis with oblimin rotation was repeated to eliminate the excluded items and pointed to the existence of 6 factors. The scree plot revealed a break after the second factor. An additional 10 items were excluded based on non-compliance. In the third step, the principal axis factoring with oblimin rotation was repeated without excluding items and revealed the existence of 3 factors explaining 31.26%; 11.03% and 5.71% variance. The Scree plot pointed to the second-factor break. 4 items were excluded based on non-compliance (two items had eigenvalue less than 0.5; one factor contained only 1 item, one item logically explained a better second factor, but its factor charge for the second factor was low). Other items have defined and explained adequately extracted factors. The result was 2 factors. The first factor was named as the attractiveness of the alcohol related post (motivation to use alcohol after seeing a Facebook post with alcohol) and consisted of 3 items. The alpha coefficient was 0.87. The second factor was named the incidence of alcohol related Facebook posts of friends and consists of 3 items. The alpha coefficient is 0.74. Limits: cross-sectional data collection design, occasional sampling limited by teachers' willingness to participate in data collection; the prevailing number of women in the research sample. Conclusion: The result of the statistical analysis is the methodology of "Aspects of Presenting Alcohol Related Posts on Facebook", consisting of 6 items that represent 2 factors. We recommend re-validating the developed methodology and its subsequent use in the context in relation to other socio-psychological factors.

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