Late Adoption of Preventive Measures of Online Privacy in Mexican and Colombian University Students

Abstract

One of the educational challenges faced by Latin American universities is the development of digital citizenship competence in their students on issues of digital identity, security and privacy online. The aim of the study was to identify the perception of Mexican and Colombian university students towards the preventive measures of online privacy. For that purpose, a mixed-cut study was carried out. For the quantitative part, a survey made up of 20 items was applied to 1,245 university students. Meanwhile, for the qualitative part, 42 university students were asked to answer open questions. The quantitative analysis was carried out using descriptive and inferential statistics for data by country and gender. In order to test the hypotheses about the existence of significant differences, the Kruskal-Wallis test was chosen. While for the qualitative part, the university student responses were transcribed, the information was organized, and the main contributions of the students were presented. The results indicate that Mexican and Colombian university students have a favorable attitude towards preventive measures of online privacy. No significant differences were detected in the items on preventive measures of online privacy with respect to the variables Country, and Gender. The stories of the university student show a late development in the attitudes and skills regarding preventive measures of online privacy that begins with entering university, and that is consolidated over time. In addition, inconsistencies were detected between the favorable attitude expressed by students towards a broad use of online care with respect to the informants' narratives. Keywords: comparative studies, digital competence, digital citizenship, online privacy, university students