A Study on the Development of the Digital Citizenship Competence Assessment Tool

• In Event: Educational Paradigms in the Age of AI: Policy, Efficacy, Application, and Digital Citizenship in Korea

Proposal

Amid the escalating advancement of artificial intelligence and the metaverse, accentuated by the digital transition engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing profound structural shifts across the socio-economic and cultural landscape. Given that these changes are likely to gain momentum, there is an urgent need for fundamental research to construct new norms and order in the digital world, thus facilitating a symbiotic digital society. In alignment with these issues, our objective is to promote the cultivation of responsible digital citizens who wield digital technology appropriately, through the development of the DCAT (Digital Citizenship Assessment Tool).

The DCAT functions as a comprehensive assessment instrument designed to evaluate the multifaceted competencies that individuals demonstrate as digital citizens. It encompasses three core values: Digital Safety, Digital Co-existence, and Digital Responsibility, each of which is further divided into three sub-areas. We utilize a 5-point Likert scale to structure the DCAT, with higher scores denoting a stronger concurrence with the contents of each query.

We conducted a validation process for the developed questions with a sample of 319 students from elementary, middle, and high schools. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed to verify the construct validity of the preliminary DCAT and to evaluate the appropriateness of the items. The selected fit indices for the CFA included CFI (Comparative Fit Index), TLI (Tucker-Lewis Index), and RMSEA (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation), universally recognized in confirmatory factor analysis models.

Following the CFA and reliability analysis, we finalized a total of 36 items—four per sub-area—that exhibited outstanding reliability and validity. Further CFA and reliability analyses allowed us to develop a short-form DCTI composed of 18 items, suitable for lower elementary grades.

The implementation of the DCAT strives to create a virtuous cycle, pinpointing and rectifying the deficient areas of digital citizenship through educational content. Moreover, employing DCAT enables the detection of shifts that occur in the content learning process before and after engagement with digital citizenship educational content, providing a basis for analyzing learning efficacy.

The DCAT, developed through this research, serves not only to define digital citizenship but also to swiftly evaluate an individual's category of digital citizen and their respective capacity levels. Its significance lies in establishing a foundation for delivering customized services in digital education and serving as a diagnostic tool for evaluating educational effectiveness.

Authors

• Jae Young Chung, Dept. of Education, Ewha Womans University

• Hyunmyung Jo, Ewha Womans University

• Jae Woon Hwang, Center for Future Education Research

• Myunghyun Moon