The Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure University Teachers’ Attitude towards Ethical Use of Information Technology for a Sustainable Education

Abstract

A self-administered measurement tool was developed and validated to provide data regarding ethical attitude of university teachers for a sustainable education. The research was based on several factors involved in forming attitudes towards the unethical information technology use. The sample: 334 Romanian teachers’ respondents who teach in the higher education system contributed to this research. A successions of factor analyses and structural equation modeling showed that a second-order model is a good fit for experimental data (χ2/df = 1.75, comparative fit index = 0.958, root mean square error of approximation = 0.045), however the partial least square (PLS-SEM) CFA approach revealed higher scores of factor loadings, implying the best fit to the model. This research suggested a structural model of ethical attitude of university teachers, composed by four factors measured by 13 indices. The results demonstrated that PLS-SEM CFA is appropriate for creating a valid structural model to measure university teachers’ ICT ethical attitude. The current research predicted a theoretical contribution to the field of ethical attitude of university teachers within a sustainable education context.

Teaching Digital Competence and Eco-Responsible Use of Technologies: Development and Validation of a Scale

“…(a) Guarantee that the information obtained through the analysis and the different interpretations value the reality that is being measured. The first of the objectives (a) was achieved following a standardized procedure for the construction of this type of scales [6,19,[30][31][32][41][42][43]; which was included from developing preliminary versions (alpha versions), to obtaining a beta version that was subjected to a content analysis by a group of experts in educational technology. After applying the Likert-type scale of eight response options, the experts' report showed that almost all the items were written in a language appropriate to their recipients, that they met the objectives set out in their design and that they were assessed with the maximum score for its clarity of presentation.…”

“…With this paper, it was expected to awaken the sustainable awareness of readers, as well as that of the researchers and educators of different educational levels in everything related to the eco-responsible use of technologies. This is an important aspect because the concept of sustainable education in Spain is not yet sufficiently established in the school curriculum (it is only included in a superficial way) and it is a very necessary question [18,19]. Until now, this term was seen as associated exclusively with the natural and the most basic concept of ecology.…”

“…Therefore, teachers need to be trained to prepare future generations to make an eco-responsible use of technologies that guarantees sustainable development and consequently, the optimal health of the planet. This implies moving towards what has been called sustainable education [18,19].…”

“…Many studies have emphasized the measurement of teaching digital competence [6,19,[30][31][32], but no instruments have been developed that measure such a specific dimension of it. The need to know the self-perceived level of competence that teachers have to educate in eco-responsible use has led to the development and design of a scale of measurement of this competence that serves as a basis for teachers' self-reflection.…”

Implications of Using Technology on Children, Teachers and Parents in Early Education

“…In early education, digital citizenship aims to build an ethical and empathic foundation for the experiences in the virtual world that children will have. The responsible ethical use of technology (Mâţă et al, 2020) becomes a requirement of today's society, so it is necessary to form this skill from an early age.…”