The investigation of the relation between digital citizenship levels and tendencies to cyber bullying of primary preservice teachers

The main objective of this research is defining the relationship between the digital citizenship levels and their tendencies to cyber bullying by defining their tendencies to cyber bullying and digital citizenship levels. Population of the study consists of all the primary preservice teachers of Department of Primary School Teacher Education at Adnan Menderes University in 2014-2015 academic year. As a Digital Citizenship Scale, "Cyber Bullying Attitude Scale" improved by Türkoğlu (2013) is used to define the primary presevice teachers' cyber bullying tendencies and "Digital Citizenship Scale" improved by İşman and Güngören (2014) is used to define their digital citizenship levels. It was found that there is a statistically significant medium level and positive correlation between digital citizenship levels and tendencies to cyber bullying (r= 0.333, p<.01). The research revealed significant differences between primary preservice teachers digital citizenship levels and daily usage of internet and perceived internet skills variables. Moreover, no significant difference was found between the digital citizenship levels and the variables including gender, school grade and internet usage year. The research revealed significant differences between primary preservice teachers' tendencies to cyber bullying and the gender and school grade variables. However, no significant difference was found between the cyber bullying tendency and the variables including internet usage year, daily usage of internet and perceived internet skills. KEYWORDS: Digital Citizenship, Cyber Bullying, Virtual Bullying, Preservice Teachers.