Digital parenting attitude scale: validity and reliability study

Extended Abstract 
Purpose 
In today’s world, since digital media are commonplace and pervasive in the modern household, 
child-rearing has become a more complicated issue. Digital media brings both new learning 
opportunities and risks for its consumers simultaneously. Therefore, it brings out a dilemma for 
parents. On one side, parents prefer to facilitate their children’s use of digital media for educational 
and social purposes, on the other side, they try to manage the digital risks brought by such 
technology. There are different kinds of risks associated with using digital media and children are 

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 
ISSN:1302-8944 Yıl: 2018 
Sayı: 46 
Sayfa: 149-173 
170 
the most vulnerable group to those risks. For instance, three kinds of online risks: content, contact, 
and conduct risks were classified. First, in content risks, children are exposed to an unwelcome or 
inappropriate content. Second, contact risks include risky communications in which children and/or 
peers are involved. Lastly, in conduct risks, children are the active actors in contributing risky 
content or contact. Children’s exposure to online risks has been growing in a rapid fashion. On the 
other hand, digital media comes with its opportunities for learning and development. There is 
evidence for early development of literacy skills in children who were using digital media 
applications from an early age. Similarly, serious computer games that were uniquely designed for 
educative purposes were reported to enhance subject learning and trigger curiosity in children. 
Digital parenting is defined as parents’ attitudes and practices in regulating their children’s digital 
media use. Interestingly, children’s digital media use was largely affected by parents’ attitudes 
towards digital media. Parents’ awareness of digital learning opportunities and possible risks 
directed their parenting decisions on children’s digital media use. For instance, parents’ screen time 
and parental attitudes were strongly associated with children’s screen time. In general, parents 
utilized active, restrictive and co-using strategies in regulating use of technological devices of their 
children. These strategies are affected by parents’ attitudes toward digital media. Therefore, 
studying attitudes, since they are stable and resistant to easily change, is a good start to 
understanding parental practices in regulating digital media use of their children. 
Although in many studies digital parenting attitudes were studied, valid and reliable scales aiming 
to measure this construct are limited in number. Some studies targeting to assess parents digital 
parenting attitudes utilized general attitude scales for technology or open-ended questions. Hence, 
the purpose of the current study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a scale that was 
developed to measure parents’ digital parenting attitudes. Previously only in two studies reliable 
and valid measurement devices were generated to assess digital parenting attitudes. Yet, this study 
is unique since it is the first study aiming to develop a valid and reliable scale for assessing digital 
parenting attitudes in Turkish.
Digital parenting is a significant concern for all children in supporting effective use of digital media 
for educational purposes and saving them from digital risks. However, after age of 6 children’s 
opportunities to reach digital media devices increase and parents’ responsibilities in mediating 
digital media become complicated. That is, by the school years, children’s need to use digital media 
devices for educational purposes become pervasive and indispensable. Similarly, by this age, 
parents and children evaluations related to the digital risks become less convergent. Keeping these 

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 
ISSN:1302-8944 Yıl: 2018 
Sayı: 46 
Sayfa: 149-173 
171 
in mind, in the current study parents of children aged between 6 and 18 were selected as the target 
population.