ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Media Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1664397
This article is part of the Research TopicDigital Citizenship in the New Era of Social MediaView all 12 articles
Investigating the relationship between digital citizenship levels and cyberbullying attitudes of university students
Provisionally accepted
- 1Bitlis Eren University, Bitlis, Türkiye
- 2Mus Alparslan Universitesi, Muş, Türkiye
- 3Inonu Universitesi, Malatya, Türkiye
- 4Bitlis Eren Universitesi, Bitlis, Türkiye
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Background: This study examines the relationship between the levels of digital citizenship and attitudes towards cyberbullying among prospective physical education and sports teachers. Methods: This quantitative study adopted the relational survey model within its research framework. The sample consists of prospective physical education and sports teachers who studied in the Physical Education and Sports Teaching departments at universities during the 2022–23 academic year. The sample was determined using the convenience sampling method. The sample was administered a personal information form created by the researchers, as well as the Digital Citizenship Scale and the Cyberbullying Attitude Scale. Results: According to the MANOVA results for the Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying Attitude scales, significant differences were found in the Digital Law, Digital Rights and Responsibilities, Approval and Anxiety subscales based on gender. However, the Pearson correlation analysis revealed no significant relationship between age and the subscales of the Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying Attitude scales. However, the Pearson correlation analysis of the Digital Citizenship and Cyberbullying Attitude subscales revealed significant positive and negative relationships. Conclusions: The results of the path analysis of the digital citizenship scale and its subscales (identity concealment, enjoyment, approval and anxiety) showed that digital citizenship significantly predicted identity concealment, enjoyment, approval and anxiety.
Keywords: Physical Education and Sports1, Digital Citizenship2, cyberbullying3, Internet security4, Use of technology5
Received: 11 Jul 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Erdoğan, Karayol, Murathan, Akarsu, Baş and Norman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ramazan Erdoğan, Bitlis Eren University, Bitlis, Türkiye
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