A Structural Model of the Relationships between Digital Well-being, Digital Social Capital, and Digital Self-Efficacy among Students of the Faculty of Education, Alexandria University.

Document Type : Original Article

Author

مدرس علم النفس التربوي بكلية التربية جامعة الإسكندرية.

Abstract

The current study aimed to validate the structural model of the relationships among digital well-being, digital social capital, and digital self-efficacy among students of the Faculty of Education at Alexandria University, and to interpret the direct and indirect effects among the research variables. The main field study sample consisted of 471 fourth-year students from both literary and scientific specializations, with a mean age of 21.80 years and a standard deviation of 0.664.The study utilized the Digital Well-Being Scale developed by Mathew et al. (2023), translated by the researcher, along with the Digital Social Capital Scale and the Digital Self-Efficacy Scale, both developed by the researcher. The psychometric properties of the instruments were verified through a sample of 390 fourth-year students from both specializations.The research adopted the descriptive causal approach using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to achieve its objectives. The results indicated a statistical fit of the proposed structural model and revealed significant direct and indirect positive effects of digital self-efficacy on digital well-being across its cognitive, emotional, and physical dimensions. Likewise, digital social capital showed significant direct and indirect positive effects on all dimensions of digital well-being. Furthermore, digital self-efficacy exhibited significant direct and indirect effects on both bonding and bridging dimensions of digital social capital.The study also identified a mediating role of digital social capital in the relationship between digital self-efficacy and digital well-being, also no significant differences were found in the model’s effects between male and female students at the Faculty of Education, Alexandria University. Based on the findings, the study proposed a set of recommendations and suggestions for future research.

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