Examining human value development of children with different habits of internet usage

The Internet, which has become a part of social life, is likely to lead to negative effects on especially children’s development of moral and human values due to its interactive features. The purpose of this study was to examine the development of human values in children with different Internet usage habits. In this respect, the study was carried out with on 521 primary school students attending 6th, 7th and 8th classes. In data analysis, first of all, cluster analysis was conducted in order to determine the categories for the pupils who had similar characteristics in terms of their Internet usage habits. Then, in order to examine each cluster, crosstabs, means, percentages and frequencies were calculated. In addition, to find out whether the cluster means differed significantly with respect to the human values, one way-ANOVA was applied. The results revealed that the children were categorized in four clusters in terms of their average Internet usage time in a day, frequency of online surfing, online learning, online game playing and online surfing. In addition, with respect to human values in general and such values as responsibility, respect and being peaceful, a significant difference was found between the cluster of children using the Internet most and the cluster using it least.