Abstract

Students today need to become good digital citizens in order to operate successfully when reading, writing, learning, and interacting socially online. Digital citizenship depends on online access, mastery of technical skills for using digital devices, guidance from parents and teachers, and applying established social norms for online behavior. To investigate each of these aspects of digital citizenship, we examined the survey responses of 2,005 Grades 4 to 9 students (56% were female) who were randomly selected from 3,286 schools in Chongqing China. Virtually all students (96%) reported having internet access at home, and spent an average of 28 min online at home (SD = 25.42) and 17 min at school (SD = 28.94). Ninety-five percent of students were positive about their digital capabilities; 89% of them indicated online responsibilities and rights were taught at school; and 58% noted parents guided their internet use. On average, students slightly agreed that being online was important, but averaged moderate agreement they liked to read and write online for academic and social purposes, with reading online occurring weekly and writing online monthly. On average, students moderately agreed that they followed norms of digital netiquette, practiced safe online privacy behaviors, managed their digital footprint appropriately, balanced digital media use in healthy ways, and approached digital media in a literate manner. Nevertheless, 24% of students agreed they had been cyberbullied, 73% shared passwords with friends, 68% befriended strangers, 39% reshared posts, 78% used false personal information to register online, and 24% copied text directly from online sources when doing homework. Measures of digital citizenship were statistically related to student characteristics, internet use, and beliefs about online engagement. Implications for practice and future research are presented.

Contributions of this paper

There is considerable variability in online access and use across the globe. At least in the U.S., students mostly reported they were not taught digital citizenship at school, and only about one-half of students or less indicated parental oversight of online behavior. While many U.S. students indicated they adhered to the social norms of digital citizenship, concerning behaviors were reported in terms of cyberbullying, password sharing, and resharing posts.

This study conducted in June 2022 in Chongqing, China after the Action Outline for Promoting Digital Citizenship was issued in September 2021. Compared with previous studies, our participating students’ perceptions about their digital citizenship practices was positive (and it was reported that less time was spent on online games). These findings are important because the ability to access, use the internet capably, and act online in responsible, safe, ethical, and healthy ways is essential to success in the informational societies of today. Collectively, the students in this study recognized the importance of online access, agreeing that access was important for social and academic purposes, including learning, reading, and writing. They were also positive about reading and writing online, and they further noted they read online weekly and wrote online monthly. Even though the internet was used sparingly at school for academic purposes, these youngsters had developed positive attitudes about the use of the internet for learning and literacy.

Nevertheless, the study revealed multiple concerns that policy makers, parents, and teachers should carefully consider. This included limited use of internet resources at school as well as a sizeable proportion of parents (42%) who did not monitor and influence youngster’s online behavior. Student responses to survey questions also revealed unacceptable rates of cyberbullying, sharing of passwords with friends, friending strangers, resharing of posts, using false personal information to register online, and copying text directly from online sources when doing homework. These concerns need to be better addressed by parents, teachers, and students if the norms of digital citizenship are to become habitual in China (and other countries as well).

 

Journal

Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal

Journal Impact Factor: 2.2 (2024)

5-year Journal Impact Factor: 3.1 (2024)

Reading and Writing publishes high-quality scientific articles pertaining to the processes, acquisition, and loss of reading and writing skills. The journal fully represents the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of research in the field, focusing on the interaction among various disciplines, such as linguistics, information processing, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, speech and hearing science and education.

Coverage in Reading and Writing includes models of reading, writing and spelling at all age levels; orthography and its relation to reading and writing; computer literacy; cross-cultural studies; and developmental and acquired disorders of reading and writing. It publishes research articles, critical reviews, theoretical papers, and case studies.

Reading and Writing is one of the most highly cited journals in Education and Educational Research and Educational Psychology.

Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-024-10594-9

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