Examining the relationship between social studies teachers' digital citizenship competencies and digital literacy levels

Social studies is a subject that aims to enable individuals to participate in social life as active and responsible citizens. Acquiring digital citizenship and digital literacy skills is among the goals of social studies in the digital world. Digital literacy is the process of accessing information, questioning that information, and making sense of it. Digital citizenship refers to an individual who can participate actively and responsibly in digital environments. This research examines the relationship between social studies teachers' digital citizenship competencies and their digital literacy levels. This research, conducted using a relational survey model, employed a convenient sampling method and collected data from a total of 453 social studies teachers working within the borders of Van province during the 2024-2025 academic year. To collect data, the "Demographic Information Form" created by the researcher to obtain demographic information of social studies teachers, the "Digital Citizenship Scale" developed by Erdem and Koçyiğit (2019), and the "Digital Literacy Scale" adapted by Hamutoğlu, Güngören, Uyanık, and Erdoğan (2017) were used. Descriptive analysis, independent samples t-test, one-way ANOVA test, and Pearson correlation coefficient were used in the analysis of the data. The findings indicate that the social studies teachers in the sample group generally possess a sufficient level of skill and awareness in terms of digital literacy and digital citizenship. Furthermore, it was determined that teachers' digital citizenship and digital literacy levels did not differ in terms of gender and years of professional experience, but did differ in terms of daily internet usage time. In conclusion, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between the digital literacy levels and digital citizenship competencies of social studies teachers. Finally, the study offers several suggestions for future research for researchers interested in this topic. Keywords: Digital citizenship, digital literacy, social studies