Toward Digital Citizenship: Examining Factors Affecting Participation and Involvement in the Internet Society among Higher Education Students

Abstract

The current study aims to understand digital citizenship, based on the assumptions of Ribble (2014), by examining factors affecting participation and involvement in the Internet virtual societies among higher education students. A quantitative approach using a survey questionnaire was implemented. The participants were 174 students from the Faculty of Education at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. The descriptive statistics show that the students generally have good levels of perceived Internet attitude, computer self-efficacy, and digital citizenship, especially in terms of respecting oneself and others online. The factors affecting digital citizenship are computer experience, daily average technology use, students' attitudes toward the Internet, and computer self-efficacy. Students with higher levels of computer experience are more involved in activities related to educating oneself and connecting with others online compared with students with less experience. Further, students with higher levels of daily average technology use tend to protect themselves and others online more compared with students with lower levels of technology use. Moreover, higher levels of students' Internet attitude and computer self-efficacy are associated with higher levels of respect for oneself and others, of educating oneself and others, and of total digital citizenship. Based on the current study findings, appropriate recommendations are proposed in terms of policy and practice.

Di̇ji̇tal Vatandaşlik Algisinin İncelenmesi̇: Ampi̇ri̇k Bi̇r Değerlendi̇rme

“…Dijital vatandaşlık algısı ile ilgili çalışmaların, ölçek geliştirme çabaları (Choi vd., 2017; İşman ve Güngören, 2014), ölçeğin bireylere uygulanması (Takavarasha vd., 2018;Zahrani, 2015) ve çatı model oluşturma (Kim ve Choi, 2018)…”

Ciudadanía digital y su medida: propiedades psicométricas de una escala y retos para la educación superior

“…La revisión de la literatura ofrece al menos siete investigaciones que han tenido como resultado la construcción de una escala para medir la ciudadanía digital, administradas especialmente a estudiantes universitarios o recientemente graduados (Isman y Gungoren, 2014;Al-Zahrani, 2015;Nordin et al, 2016; Choi, Glassman y Cristol, 2017; Torrent-Sellens y Martínez-Cerdá, 2017), a adolescentes (Jones y Mitchell, 2015), o a profesorado (Kim y Choi, 2018;Choi, Cristol y Gimbert, 2018). Las muestras, propiedades psicométricas y dimensiones de las seis escalas se muestran en la Tabla 1, así como las diferentes réplicas que otros investigadores han llevado a cabo en distintos países (Elcicek, Erdemci y Karal, 2018; Xu, Yang, MacLeod y Zhu, 2018a y 2018b; Kara, 2018 El conocimiento detallado de la ciudadanía digital debe llevarnos a plantear el abordaje de una educación para la ciudadanía digital.…”

“…En cualquier caso, se ofrece a la comunidad científica en español una herramienta e instrumento consistente para desarrollos y aplicaciones ulteriores que permita estudiar y medir la ciudadanía digital e incluso llevar a cabo análisis comparativos con otras escalas en futuras investigaciones (Al-Zahrani, 2015;Isman y Gungoren, 2014;Jones y Mitchell, 2016;Nordin et al, 2016;Kim y Choi, 2018).…”

Availability of ISTE Digital Citizenship Standards Among Middle and High School Students and Its Relation to Internet Self-Efficacy

“…The Digital Transformation Program 2020 in Saudi Arabia provides for enhancing the values and skills of students and building their national, and intellectual personality on the level of knowledge, skills, and values, which can be achieved in the digital world (Vision 2030, 2016a; Vision 2030, 2016b). While many studies (Pescetta, 2011;Lyons, 2012;Al-Zahrani, 2015;Jones & Mitchell, 2016;Payne, 2016;Webster, 2018;Kim & Choi, 2018) emphasize the role of both the student and the teacher in activating digital citizenship in the school environment and that knowing the level of digital citizenship among students leads to valuing their needs, and knowing the capabilities that may help in developing solutions to meet the demands of digital citizenship according to the school environment, which should create a suitable learning environment, raise awareness of its issues to reach safe practices and mitigate risky behaviors that may be caused by the use of technology.…”