Character education policy fosters adolescents’ responsible online behavior through a sequential digital development pathway
Abstract
Purpose – This study examined whether character education policy is associated with adolescents’ responsible online behavior directly and through the sequential roles of digital citizenship, digital well-being, self-regulation, and learning engagement.
Method – A cross-sectional survey was completed by 245 senior high school students in Bandung, Indonesia, selected purposively because they regularly used digital technologies and had participated in school-based character education. The six-construct model was tested with partial least squares structural equation modeling and 5,000 bootstrap resamples.
Findings – All 15 direct paths were positive and statistically significant. Character education policy showed its strongest association with digital citizenship (β = 0.661, p < 0.001). The model explained 60.1% of the variance in responsible online behavior. Four specific indirect paths and the proposed serial pathway were significant. The serial association from character education policy through digital citizenship, digital well-being, self-regulation, and learning engagement to responsible online behavior was β = 0.081 (p < 0.001).
Conclusion and Implications – Responsible online behavior appears to develop through an interconnected institutional, psychological, and educational process. Schools should align character education with digital citizenship instruction, support for healthy technology use, self-regulatory practice, and engaging learning activities. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to test temporal ordering and causal effects
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