Digital Kids Asia Pacific (DKAP) in Thailand

Abstract

The objectives of this survey research were to 1) develop and validate the Thai version of the DKAP survey instrument to measure digital citizenship competencies in Thailand and 2) survey the baseline of Thai children’s digital citizenship competencies in an educational context. The research sample consists of 1,216 Mathayom Suksa 3 or Grade 9 students from schools under the Office of the Basic Education Commission, academic year 2019. A multistage sampling was used to obtain data from 15 schools in different regions of Thailand. Analysis data using descriptive statistics consisted of frequency, percentage age. mean and standard deviation. The validation of the tools consisted of construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis and internal consistency reliability using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The results were summarized as follow: 1) The Thai version of the DKAP survey instrument to measure digital citizenship competencies in Thailand has construct validity in all domains: digital literacy; digital safety and resilience; digital participation and agency; digital emotional intelligence; and digital creativity and innovation. Moreover, it also has high reliability in all domains( = 0.80 – 0.88). 2) The results of Thai children’s digital citizenship competencies in an educational context showed that the digital safety and resilience domain was the highest competency (M=3.34, SD=0.44), followed by digital literacy domain (M=3.12, SD=0.48); digital participation and agency domain (M=3.09, SD=0.47); digital emotional intelligence domain (M=3.07, SD=0.47); and digital creativity and innovation domain (M=2.84, SD=0.55) respectively