Middle school students' digital literacy, their perceptions of moral values ​​in the digital environment and levels of cyberbullying

The aim of this research is to determine middle school students' digital literacy, their perception of moral values in the digital environment, and their cyber bullying levels. The research was conducted with a descriptive survey model and the study group consists of a total of 553 students studying in middle school in the 2022-2023 academic year. Data collection tools; digital literacy scale, middle school students' perceptions of moral values in the digital environment scale, and cyber bullying scale. Cronbach's Alpha values of the scales from the collected data; It was calculated as 0.905 in digital literacy, 0.861 in middle school students' perceptions of moral values in the digital environment, and 0.979 in cyber bullying. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, independent sample t-test, One-Way ANOVA, correlation test and regression analysis were performed on the data. Middle school students' digital literacy levels are high, their perception of moral values in the digital environment is medium, and their cyber bullying levels are low; Digital literacy levels of male and female students are similar, but girls' cyberbullying levels are lower than boys, and girls' perception of moral values in the digital environment is higher than boys; The levels of digital literacy, perception of moral values in the digital environment and cyber bullying differ significantly at different grade levels; digital literacy has a positive and significant relationship with their perception of moral values in the digital environment, but they do not have a statistically significant relationship with cyber bullying; It was concluded that there is a statistically significant negative relationship between their perceptions of moral values in the digital environment and cyber bullying. Perception of moral values in the digital environment and cyber bullying variables were found to be at low levels together with digital literacy; The variables of digital literacy and cyber bullying together with the perception of moral values in the digital environment are at a medium level; The variables of digital literacy and perception of moral values in the digital environment together have a moderately significant relationship with cyber bullying, and they account for approximately 11% of the total variance, respectively; 25% ; It was concluded that it explained 18% of the data.