Development and initial validation of a 12-item digital well-being scale for Chinese university students: Integrating factor and network analyses

This study developed and initially evaluated a 12-item Digital Well-Being Scale (DWBS) for Chinese university students. An initial 27-item pool was administered to 1526 undergraduates, and the cross-sectional dataset was randomly divided for item and exploratory factor analyses, network analysis and candidate-model evaluation. Expert review of the 12-item form yielded I-CVIs of 0.71–1.00, S-CVI/Ave = 0.89 and 84.52% agreement with prespecified content domains. The short form retained the original total-score information ( r = 0.992) and showed high internal consistency (α = 0.959). Exploratory factor and bifactor results supported a dominant general factor (ωH = 0.948; ECV = 0.885), while specific-factor reliability was weak. HTMT values ranged from 0.844 to 0.957, indicating limited domain distinctiveness. Network communities were consistent across tested tuning parameters, although weak edges were parameter-sensitive. The total score is currently recommended; domain scores should remain descriptive pending independent replication.