The Role of New Media Literacy and Critical Thinking on Predicting Digital Citizenship

Abstract

This chapter aimed to investigate the predictive role of new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions of university students on their digital citizenship levels. The study was carried out with 124 university students studying in different departments of a state university in Türkiye, and the data were gathered using New Media Literacy Scale, Sosu Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale, and Digital Citizenship Scale. It was concluded that university students had high new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions while they presented moderate digital citizenship levels. Also, university students' new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions had a moderate and positive relationship with their digital citizenship levels. It was also concluded that university students' new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions significantly predicted their digital citizenship levels, and they together explained 17% of the total variance on their digital citizenship levels.