Investigation of pre-service teachers' sensitivity to cyberbullying, perceptions of digital ethics and awareness of digital data security

Abstract

Today, with digital technologies being in every aspect of our lives, cyberbullying and digital ethics, and digital security violations are emerging as concepts that threaten our digital world. It is thought that displaying ethical behavior and providing digital security in digital environments can increase sensitivity to cyberbullying. Here, it is necessary to learn and apply the concepts of digital ethics and security correctly. For this reason, we can say that the places where we can learn and apply these concepts in the best way are educational environments. Therefore, the adoption of digital ethics and digital security concepts by pre-service teachers, both for themselves and for their future students, will raise awareness about the sensitivity to cyberbullying. This study also revealed that the concepts of digital ethics and security should be considered to increase the sensitivity of pre-service teachers to cyberbullying. In the research, the scanning model, one of the quantitative research designs, was used. Data were collected from 879 pre-service teachers studying at a state university. Within the scope of the research, three scales were used for pre-service teachers: Cyberbullying Sensitivity Scale, Digital Data Security Scale and The information and Communication Technologies Usage Ethics Scale. T-test, ANOVA, MANOVA, and regression tests were used in the analysis of the data. Because of the research, it was seen that the digital data security awareness, cyberbullying sensitivities, and digital ethics perceptions of pre-service teachers did not differ according to grade level, but differed according to gender and department level. Additionally, while digital data security awareness did not differ according to the department, it did not differ according to the combined effect of gender and department variables. Additionally, it was concluded that digital data security awareness predicts sensitivity to cyberbullying. Suggestions were made regarding the findings obtained at the end of the research.