Practicing citizenship in the digital era: Examining Chinese higher education students’ practices of digital citizenship

The sustaining development of information and communication technology has brought dramatic changes to the lives of human beings, including the way people think, communicate, and engage in social and civic affairs (Choi, 2016). In this circumstance, traditional concept of citizenship is limited in its application in the digitalized society and researchers therefore proposed a new concept: digital citizenship. Review of current research on digital citizenship suggests that most of them were conducted in Western social context. There is limited research focusing on investigating digital citizenship in non-western context, especially China. This research aims to respond to this research gap by examining Chinese university students’ digital citizenship practices using a self-developed questionnaire instrument (verified reliability and validity). This research recruited 820 students using purposeful sampling method which takes gender, educational level, and educational background into consideration. The statistical results suggest Chinese university students demonstrate overall ‘good’ practices of digital citizenship: having confidential attitudes towards digital literacy skills; responsible in fulfilling responsibilities; behaving ethically online; showing respect for other’s legal rights in the online community and are able to protect personal rights (e.g., right of privacy). However, students overall demonstrated a relatively low passion for engaging in civic affairs online. This research could theoretically contribute to current knowledge of digital citizenship in non-western social context. Also, practically, this research provides empirical data of students’ practices of digital citizenship, which has the potential to assist educators and policymakers in identifying gaps between teaching and learning and promote the development of digital citizenship education. Copyright © 2023 HKERA-APERA.