Exploring Undergraduates’ Digital Citizenship Levels: Adaptation of the Digital Citizenship Scale to Turkish

Abstract

This study reports the results of two successive studies on digital citizenship. ‘Study I’ aims to adapt the Digital Citizenship Scale, developed by Choi, Glassman and Cristol (2017), into Turkish context, and ‘Study II’ examines undergraduates’ levels of digital citizenship with respect to the variables of age, faculty, gender, amount of daily computer use, amount of daily smartphone use, and self-evaluations as to their skills levels of digital technology use. In Study I, the adaptation process of the scale, and validity and reliability analyses are provided based on data obtained from 272 undergraduates from 8 different universities in Turkey. A valid and reliable 18-item adapted form of Digital Citizenship Scale is offered in this part. In Study II, a survey design study, data were obtained from 220 undergraduates from a state university in Turkey and their digital citizenship levels were examined with respect to various variables. It was found out that the participating undergraduates had a medium level of digital citizenship, and they had the lowest mean in Internet Political Activism and the highest mean in Technical Skills. A significant difference between the undergraduates’ levels of digital citizenship was found only for self-evaluations as to their skills levels of digital technology use but not for the variables of age, faculty, gender, amount of daily computer use, and amount of daily smartphone use. Results are discussed, and implications are suggested.