Examining the psychometric properties of the electronic gaming motives questionnaire in a sample of Canadian adults: a replication and extension study

The Electronic Gaming Motives Questionnaire (EGMQ) assesses motives for engaging in video gaming, which are important to understanding risk for problem gaming and related harms. Only limited research has validated the EGMQ and examined its applicability across demographic subgroups (i.e., invariance). To this end, the present study evaluated the psychometric properties, including measurement invariance, of the EGMQ. Participants (N = 332) were Canadian adults reporting past-year gaming, recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform. Participants completed measures assessing demographic characteristics, gaming behaviours (motives, time spent, games played, problems), and psychological risk factors for problem gaming (e.g., boredom proneness, impulsivity). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure of the EGMQ, including coping, enhancement, social, and self-gratification motive factors. The EGMQ demonstrated configural, metric, and scalar invariance by age, sex, and employment status. Factors were differentially associated with several psychological risk factors for problem gaming, supporting convergent validity of the EGMQ. Concurrent validity was also supported by differential associations of the factors with various gaming-related outcomes, with coping motives associated with the greatest gaming engagement and problem gaming severity. Findings suggest that the EGMQ has good psychometric properties and can be administered to participants from different demographic groups. The EGMQ may be used in future research to understand how coping, enhancement, social, and self-gratification motives for gaming may differentially confer risk for problem gaming and related harms.