Digital natives in Mexico: Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Digital Citizenship Scale in university students

Abstract

Currently, citizenship as a concept is being built along with technological expansion and the internet, from where new interaction and participation ways have been generated. In this context, the concept of Digital Citizenship arises to understand citizen behavior in the digital sphere. The present study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Digital Citizenship Scale (ECD) (Choi et al., 2017), adapted for use in Mexico. The sample consisted of 522 university students between 18 and 30 years old, of which 64.5% were women. The methods used were exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The results suggested to hold back the 26 items in a 5-factor model (χ2(289) = 998.71; CFI = .96; TLI = .97, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .07) that explained 67% of the variance and it coincided with the theoretical proposal, except for a change in the belonging of item 6 to the Network Actions factor. The reliability analysis indicated a total ordinal alpha of 0.92 and the correlational analysis showed evidence of discriminant validity. It was concluded that the ECD presents adequate psychometric properties for its use in university students in Mexico.