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Parents' awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices: A scale development study

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Abstract

Children inevitably start using smart devices from the first year of their lives. Parents should have knowledge and awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices. For this reason, a scale to measure parents’ knowledge and awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices has become necessary. Due to this necessity, we want to conduct this study. The research’s problem was how parents’ knowledge and awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices could be measured using a valid and reliable scale. We conducted the research in an exploratory sequential design with two stages one of the mixed methods research. We collected and analyzed qualitative data from 33 parents in the first stage, and we collected quantitative data from 602 parents and performed a quantitative analysis to evaluate the first stage’s results in the second stage. After reviewing the literature, we concluded that the scale’s dimensions as a theoretical model were (1) application, (2) benefit, (3) restriction, and (4) worry. We decided on the scale’s items according to the theoretical model after analyzing the parents’ opinions and obtaining experts’ evaluations for the content validity of the scale items. We demonstrated that the theoretical model was supported by the analyses we performed using the data we collected. We learned how a valid and reliable scale could be used to measure the parents’ knowledge and awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices, including current and future computer systems. The scale we developed had more specific dimensions compared to the scales in the literature about digital parenting.

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Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author [G. Ö.].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Necatibey Faculty of Education, Balıkesir University, Balıkesir, Turkey

    Gülcan Öztürk

  2. Edremit Uğur Schools, Balıkesir, Turkey

    Feyza Şahin Sarıtaş

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  1. Gülcan Öztürk
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  2. Feyza Şahin Sarıtaş
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Contributions

Gülcan Öztürk: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Quantitative data analysis, Writing, Review & Editing.

Feyza Şahin: Conceptualization, Data Collecting, Qualitative data analysis, Writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gülcan Öztürk.

Ethics declarations

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

The study is a part of the research project numbered as 2019/095 supported by Balıkesir University Scientific Research Projects Unit. The university requires publication of articles within the scope of the project.

The study is an extended version of the oral presentation presented in the International Conference on Educational Technology and Online Learning (ICETOL) held on September 22–24, 2021, in Cunda, Ayvalik, Turkey.

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Research involving human participants and/or animals

Before collecting the data in the study, we applied to Balıkesir University for ethics committee approval and the ethics committee approved that there was no violation of research ethics with the ethics committee permission document dated 24.12.2020 and numbered E-19928322–302.08.01–2308.

Informed consent

Participants were informed about ethics committee approval, and informed consent was obtained from participants. Anonymity of the participants was provided in the reporting. In the study, no images were used by revealing the identity of the participants.

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 10 Items in the scale
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Öztürk, G., Şahin Sarıtaş, F. Parents' awareness of the conscious use of applications on smart devices: A scale development study. Educ Inf Technol 28, 12215–12242 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-022-11552-0

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