Validation of the Online Security Behaviors and Beliefs Questionnaire with College Students in the United States

The Online Security Behaviors and Beliefs Questionnaire is a 75-item self-report inventory assessing awareness, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs toward various aspects of cybersecurity best practices. The questionnaire was originally constructed and validated for use with adult employees in corporate settings, with the measure assessing 13 latent constructs. The goal of this study was to adapt the questionnaire to implement it with a college sample and examine if the identified factor structure for use with this population. Data were collected from 735 students at two public universities in the Southeastern region of Virginia, 676 of whom were retained for analyses. Confirmatory factor analysis using the means and variances adjusted weighted least squares method was conducted using Mplus 8.1 to assess goodness of model fit. The 13-factor model failed to meet criteria for exact or approximate model fit: χ 2 (2701) = 44569.85, p  < 0.001; root mean square error of approximation = 0.07, 95 percent confidence interval [0.06-0.07]; confirmatory fit index = 0.86; Tucker Lewis index = 0.85. The results suggest significant differences between cybersecurity awareness, attitudes, and beliefs between the corporate workplace and college student populations that ultimately influenced the reliability and validity of the questionnaire when adapted for use with college students in the United States. It is also possible that the theoretical underpinnings of this questionnaire may not apply, or they may apply differently, in this sample of predominantly African American and Caucasian students.