Our Peter Macaulay writes about his recent publication on children’s online safety knowledge and attitudes towards e-safety education.

What did our research involve?

We asked 329 children aged 8 to 11 years old to complete questionnaires which had questions on:

What were our main findings?

• We found that the children generally reported feeling safe online.

• The children perceived that they had a good awareness of online dangers and how to avoid them (subjective knowledge).
  • This subjective knowledge predicted the child’s perceived online safety.

• However, the children tended to be poorer at saying exactly what those dangers were and how they personally could avoid them (objective knowledge).
  • This was especially true of boys and the younger children who took part in our research.

Together, these findings suggest that some children may think that they know how to stay safe online, but lack, or atleast may be unable to say, objective knowledge that could actually keep them safe.

How could people build on our research?

1. Our findings show that there is a need to assess children’s objective knowledge of online safety and dangers.
2. Having further insights into this knowledge will help to design and provide appropriate e-safety education for children who currently lack this knowledge.

---

Interested in a Psychology degree? Come to an Open Day – for further details and to book your place at an open day please click here.

• BSc (Hons) Forensic and Criminological Psychology
• BSc (Hons) Psychology
• BSc (Hons) Psychology & Child Development
• BSc (Hons) Psychology & Counselling
• Undergraduate Psychology
• Postgraduate courses in Psychology