A Generalizability Analysis of the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale for Chinese College Students

College students’ mobile phone addiction is negatively associated with physical and mental health and academic performance. Many self-made questionnaires are currently being administered to Chinese college students to evaluate the mobile phone addiction tendency. Using the univariate generalizability theory and multivariate generalizability theory, this study investigated the psychometric properties and the internal structure of the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale (MPATS), the most widely used survey questionnaire assessing the status of Chinese college students’ mobile addiction. Data were a sample of 1,253 college students from the southwest of China. Primary analytic approaches included the generalizability design of univariate random measurement mode p × (i:h) and multivariate random measurement mode p˙ × i°. Results showed that the variance component of the participants and the variation related to the participants explained most of the variation of the scale, while the variance component of the items was small, and the generalizability coefficient and dependability index of the scale were 0.88 and 0.85. In the multivariate generalizability analysis, the variance component of the participants and the variation related to the participants accounted for most of the variation of the scale and the variance component of the items was small. The generalizability coefficients of withdrawal symptoms, salience, social comfort, and mood changes were 0.64–0.80, and the dependability indexes were 0.63–0.77. However, the generalizability coefficient and reliability index of universe score were 0.91 and 0.90. In addition, the contribution ratio of the four dimensions to the universe score variance was different from the assignment intention of the initial scale. Recommendations were discussed on the improvement of the test reliability for each dimension.