The Moderating Effect of Digital Literacy on the Relationship between Decision-Making Styles and Digital Citizenship in College Students

This study was conducted to examine and analyze the moderating effect of digital literacy on the overall relationship between decision-making styles and digital citizenship, and the main findings are summarized as follows.First, rational decision-making and digital literacy were confirmed to enhance digital citizenship.Second, dependent decision-making had no significant effect on participation willingness, but had a positive (+) effect on participation practice.Third, a negative (-) moderating effect of digital tool utilization ability appeared in the relationship between dependent decision-making and participation willingness.Fourth, both factors of digital literacy showed positive (+) moderating effects on the impact of rational decision-making on participation practice.These research results provide the following implications for the direction of digital citizenship education: First, the positive (+) moderating effect between rational decision-making and digital literacy confirmed that technical and ethical competencies are necessary for cognitive judgment to lead to actual behavior.This can serve as a basis for developing experiential, integrated educational programs.Second, the negative (-) moderating effect between dependent decision-making and tool utilization demonstrates the limitations of simple skill-centered education.Through this, education for cultivating learners' autonomous and self-directed thinking skills should be carried out in parallel when improving educational policies.