Tatiana Yu. Sadovnikova

Background. Modern society is characterized by the widespread use of social media, which provides users with new communication, leisure, work, and study opportunities. The growth of online communication time leads to the development of new special communicative needs. These circumstances prompted us to develop the “Questionnaire on Adolescents’ Needs to Communicate with Their Parents Online and Offline” (QANCP).

Objective. We set out to study the relationship between adolescents’ hierarchy of communicative needs and the characteristics of child-parent relations by developing and testing the psychometric characteristics of the QANCP.

Design. One hundred and twenty-eight teenagers (56 boys and 72 girls, age 15-17) took part in the research. The research methods included theoretical analysis, modeling, questionnaires, and statistical analysis. The tools used were: 1) the customized (authorial) “Questionnaire of adolescents’ needs to communicate with their parents online and offline” (QANCP); and 2) the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) by Armsden and Greenberg (1987) in the Sadovnikova and Eliseeva adaptation (Eliseeva, 2013).

Results. The results of the qualitative research proved the acceptability of the QANCP scales. Expert assessments showed that the test had sufficient face and content validity. Statistically significant differences in the parameters measuring adolescents’ communicative needs in groups with different types of relations with their parents were established.

Conclusion. Testing of the QANCP questionnaire showed that the QANCP is a valid and reliable instrument to measure adolescents’ communication with their parents in online and offline formats. It was established that there is a connection between the characteristics of child-parent relations in adolescence and the hierarchy of communication needs of “adolescent-parent” communication online and offline.

Background. The formation of emotional autonomy in child-parent relations is one of the main developmental tasks of adolescence (Havighurst, 1972). The theoretical framework of our study comes from the Age-Related Cultural-Historical Approach (Vygotsky, 2000; Leontiev, 1978; Bozhovich, 2009; Elkonin, 1972) and the Theory of Emotional Autonomy Formation by L. Steinberg & S. Silverberg (1986). Here we present the results of a test with the Russian version of the “Emotional Autonomy Scale” (EAS) as validated by L. Steinberg & S. Silverberg (1986).

Objective. We conducted a substantial psychometric analysis of the EAS scales on a Russian sample.

Design. The participants were 222 pupils from the 9^th to 11th grades in Moscow schools (age 14-17; M = 15.89; SD = 0.91). A comparative and structural analysis was conducted to review the reliability of the EAS Russian version, administered by the authors.

Methods. The pupils were evaluated with 1) the authors’ Russian version of the EAS by L. Steinberg & S. Silverberg (1986); and 2) the Parent-Child Interaction questionnaire  (PCI) by I. Markovskaya (1999).

Results. The fit of Steinberg’s original Four-factor model (L. Steinberg & S. Silverberg, 1986) and of the Beyers’ and colleagues’ Seven-factor model (2005) were studied on a Russian sample for the first time. The Four-factor model was chosen as the final model due to better fit indices and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The CFA showed the model fit indices to be acceptable (RMSEA = 0.07) or slightly less than the good fit values (CFI = 0.74). The validity analysis was conducted using the PCI by I. Markovskaya (1999).

Conclusion. The aim of theoretical analysis, approbation, and validation of the EAS on a Russian sample was achieved: the authors’ version of the EAS is a valid and reliable instrument to measure adolescents’ emotional autonomy in a Russian sample.