Digital Literacy and Moral Values in the Digital Environments: Secondary Students' Perceptions

There is an inevitable trend that directs not only social but also educational practices into digital world, and this trend should be examined in detail to recognize its effects on students. Keeping in mind this situation, this research examines secondary school students’ perceptions of moral values in the digital environments (MVDE) and digital literacy (DL) through various variables. The research employs quantitative method and correlational survey design by reaching a total of 250 participants. The results show that participants’ perceptions of DL are mostly high while their perception of MVDE are mostly at intermediate level. Gender is not a source of significant difference in terms of either DL or MVDE. While grade is not a variable effecting DL, it has been found out that lower grades have statistically significant higher values in terms of MVDE. Those who use social media have significantly higher DL scores while the difference in MVDE is not significant in terms of the same variable. Online gaming, just like gender, is not a source of significant difference in terms of both DL and MVDE. Daily online time is not related to a significant difference in DL; however, those who are online more than three hours daily have significantly lower MVDE than those with less amount of online time. Finally, MVDE and DL are positively correlated at a moderate level and MVDE explains 19,6% of DL according to the results. To conclude, it should be encouraged for the citizens of a digital world to have higher MVDE as it would help them to be “better” in such a world, just like the moral values in real life that turns people into more desirable acquaintances.