Abstract
There is a worldwide concern for young children’s online safety and a growing necessity for e-safety skills to be taught to children from a young age as part of formal schooling. The purpose of this study was to design and evaluate the effectiveness and motivational capacity of an interactive web-based learning environment for improving children’s e-safety skills. A quasi-experimental pre-test post-test control group design was used with an experimental group of 48 sixth-grade primary school students, who used the web-based learning environment over two 80-min lessons, and a control group of 25 students who did not. Findings revealed a statistically significant difference (t(47) = −14.06, p < 0.01) in the experimental group students’ e-safety performance, when students’ pre-test scores (mean (Μ) = 41.13, SD = 10.47) were compared to their post-test scores (Μ = 56.69, SD = 9.38). The analysis of an attitudes questionnaire and of student interviews documented the experimental group students’ positive attitudes toward the learning environment. Findings provide evidence of the effectiveness and motivational capacity of the web-based learning environment, which can be used in either formal education or informal learning settings, for improving children’s e-safety skills.
Highlights
Children are spending increasing amounts of time online prompting practitioners and parents to raise concerns about their online safety [1]
Qualitative data from student interviews confirmed this finding. This provides an indication that the designed learning environment “Be smart when online!” was effective in supporting children’s e-safety skills with respect to three areas, the protection of their personal data, avoiding cyberbullying, and avoiding hackers, despite the short time of its class enactment
This study described an interactive learning environment that can be used in formal education or in informal learning settings to increase young children’s e-safety skills
Summary
Children are spending increasing amounts of time online prompting practitioners and parents to raise concerns about their online safety [1]. Cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity, known as C3, are three overlapping domains of knowledge [3] that can be seen as components of e-safety. According to Pusey and Sadera (2011), cyberethics are the moral choices individuals make when using the internet and digital media. Cyberethics issues include the protection of copyright, online etiquette, hacking, and online addiction. Cybersafety, according to the same authors, consists of the actions individuals take to minimize the dangers they could encounter when using the internet. Cybersafety issues include online predators and unwanted communications, as well as avoiding viruses, spyware, malware, and their spreading to other users. Cybersecurity includes antivirus software, filters to avoid specific internet content, firewalls, and password protection [3]
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