Developing a digital citizenship attitude scale for primary school students: A validity and reliability study

The purpose of this research is to develop a scale to determine the digital citizenship attitudes of primary school students. In the research, first of all, a theoretical background was created by scanning the literature on digital citizenship. In the research during which the mixed method was used, qualitative data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with primary school students. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis method. Regarding the quantitative part of the study, validity and reliability studies of the scale were carried out. In order to ensure the content validity of the scale, experts' opinions were taken. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were carried out to ensure the construct validity of the scale. Data for EFA were collected from 320 students studying in the 3rd and the 4th grades in Kütahya. According to the results of EFA, the draft scale, consisting of 50 items, was reduced to 19 items. The data for CFA were collected from 500 students studying in the 3rd and the 4th grades in Kütahya. According to the CFA results, the reliability co-efficient of the scale was found to be 0,74. These results indicate that the Digital Citizenship Attitude Scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool. According to the results of the Digital Citizenship Attitude Scale applied to primary school students, it has been found that primary school students' attitudes towards digital citizenship are above the average and in a positive direction. In addition, primary school students' attitudes towards digital citizenship were also examined in terms of gender, age, grade level, whether they had their own computer / phone / tablet or not, constant internet connection, mother's occupational group and father's occupational group variables. Keywords: Digital citizenship, attitude, primary school students