Page 138 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

Milena Ivanuš Grmek, Monika Mithans, and Sabina Ograjšek

Table 6 Students’ Self–Assessments of Their Abilities in Evaluating Digital Content and Devices
I can … N M SD MIN MAX U p
… evaluate whether an email is spam, 356 4.14 .71 . 5. 18.5 .5
adware, phishing, or fraud.
… evaluate whether some information is 356 3.91 .73 . 5. 191.5 .47
hoax, fake, scam, or fraud.
… evaluate an object and/or a smart 356 3.84 .77 . 5. 1311.5 .63
device using appropriate quality criteria
(e.g., authenticity, utility, easy to use,
appearance, functionality, enjoyment).
… critique an object and/or a smart 356 3.84 .74 . 5. 1393.5 .11
device on relevant social media (e.g.,
TripAdvisor, YouTube, Amazon).
… evaluate whether a website is secure 356 3.81 .74 . 5. 13637. .47
and trusted.
… identify the intellectual property 356 3.59 .83 1. 5. 1666. .6
rights (IPRs) of content that I have found
on Internet.

is spam, adware, phishing, or fraud, recognize intellectual property rights of
online content, and determine if a piece of information is fake or fraudulent.
However, no significant differences were found in their abilities to assess the
quality of a product or smart device, critically review items on social media
platforms, or evaluate the safety and trustworthiness of websites.

Protect
The responses provide insights into students’ self-assessed abilities in pro-
tecting their digital identities and devices. Students feel most confident in
regularly changing passwords and settings on their smart devices and in-
ternet accounts. The ability to protect various smart devices and e-accounts
using different passwords and frequently changing them also ranks highly.
Students show moderate confidence in their ability to protect themselves
and others against identity theft, harassment, bullying, or slander, which has
the lowest average rating among the tasks listed. While they feel capable in
this area, the lower rating indicates that students perceive this task as more
complex and challenging than managing passwords and device settings.
The Mann-Whitney test revealed significant differences in one ability, as
elementary education students ranked higher in their ability to protect them-
selves and others from identity theft, harassment, bullying, or defamation.
However, no significant differences were found between elementary and
preschool education students in their abilities to regularly change passwords
and settings on their smart devices and internet accounts, or to protect var-

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