Practice of Information Technology Ethics Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate effectiveness of “Information Technology (IT) Ethics
Education Program” (BEÖP), to identify effects of this training on attitudes of students towards IT ethics and to
evaluate attitudes of students towards this learning activity. A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was
used in this study. For this study, a five-week education program consisting of subjects related to IT, ethics, IT
ethics, privacy, intellectual property, copyright, patents, license agreements, freedom of speech and IT abuse was
developed. Participants of the study were 48 students consisting of 26 girls and 22 boys from one middle school
in Izmir in 2012-2013 Fall Semesters. In the study, in order to identify attitudes of students towards ethical use
of IT, “IT Ethics with Real Life Case Studies Scale” (GYDSBE) was used. In order to find out the opinions of
participants about this learning activity, “IT Ethics Education Program Questionnaire” (BEÖPÖG) was used.
According to the research results, BEÖP has positive effects on attitudes of experiment group towards ethical use
of IT. In addition to this, there is no significant difference between ethical use of IT and gender. Considering
opinions of students about this learning activity, all students in experiment group stated that they all enjoyed
participating in BEÖP.