Assessing and priming pre-service teachers’ attitudes about online privacy and their protection strategies for social networks, email and cloud storage

Figures & data

Table 1. Percentages of answers to questions on data protection (n = 95).

	Strongly disagree	2	3	4	5	6	Strongly agree
I protect my data adequately from unauthorized persons	0.0	5.3	13.7	23.2	34.7	20.0	3.2
Privacy is not so important to me because I have nothing to hide	26.3	21.1	22.1	13.7	13.7	1.1	2.1
	Significantly worse	2	3	4	5	6	Significantly better
How would you assess your behavior in comparison to others? In comparison to my fellow students, I protect my personal data …	1.0	4.2	7.4	49.5	29.5	6.3	2.1

Table 2. Factor loadings for social network items (n = 92).

	Factor loadings
Item	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
Factor 1: Perceived Severity (α = 0.80)
Losing information privacy through social networks would pose serious problems for me	0.53
Online identity theft through social networks would create serious problems for me	0.78
Misuse of personal information available in social networks would pose serious problems for me	0.92
Losing photo privacy through social networks would pose serious problems for me	0.48
I could potentially suffer from malicious online security issues (e.g., privacy intrusions, virus attacks, etc.) in social networks	0.63
Factor 2: Perceived Vulnerability (α = 0.80)
I feel at risk when I share personal information in social networks		0.83
I feel it is not safe to share personal information in social networks		0.82
Factor 3: Self Efficacy (α = 0.58)
I believe I possess the ability to safeguard my personal information in social networks			0.33
I believe I can enable the privacy protection features in social networks without any assistance			0.64
I am confident when using privacy protection features in social networks			0.91

Factor loadings below 0.30 were omitted. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (=1) to strongly agree (=7).

Table 3. Factor loadings for e-mail items (n = 95).

	Factor loadings
Item	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
Factor 1: Perceived Severity (α = 0.91)
Losing information privacy through my emails would pose serious problems for me	0.85
Online identity theft through data from my emails would create serious problems for me	0.93
Misuse of personal information available in my emails would pose serious problems for me	0.87
When my email attachments are no longer private this would pose serious problems for me	0.84
I could potentially suffer damage from malicious online security issues in my email account	0.62
Factor 2: Perceived Vulnerability (α = 0.84)
I feel at risk when I send personal information via email		0.88
I feel it is not safe to share personal information via email		0.82
Factor 3: Self Efficacy (α = 0.90)
I know how to safeguard my personal email accounts			0.80
I can enable the privacy protection features for my email account without any assistance			0.85
I am confident when using the privacy protection settings of my email account			0.97

Factor loadings below 0.30 were omitted. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (=1) to strongly agree (=7).

Table 4. Factor loadings for cloud storage items (n = 91).

	Factor loadings
Item	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
Factor 1: Perceived Severity (α = 0.94)
Losing information privacy through my online stored data (in GoogleDrive, iCloud etc.) would pose serious problems for me	0.89
Online identity theft through data from my online stored data (in GoogleDrive, iCloud etc.) would pose serious problems for me	0.94
Misuse of personal information available in my online stored data (in GoogleDrive, iCloud etc.) would pose serious problems for me.	0.96
When my online stored data (in GoogleDrive, iCloud etc.) were no longer private this could pose serious problems for me	0.91
I could potentially suffer damage from malicious online security issues with regard to my online saved data (like in GoogleDrive etc.)	0.63
Factor 2: Perceived Vulnerability (α = 0.89)
I feel at risk when I save personal information in online cloud services		0.91
I feel it is not safe to save personal information in online cloud services		0.86
Factor 3: Self Efficacy (α = 0.87)
I know how to safeguard my online saved data (e.g., in Dropbox, GoogleDrive)			0.76
Without any assistance, I am able to adjust the settings give others access to specific online files			0.83
I feel confident handling the settings giving access to specifc online files			0.93

Factor loadings below 0.30 were omitted. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (=1) to strongly agree (=7).

Table 5. Mean comparison of unprimed and primed participants for social networks, email and cloud storage. We also present the means and standard deviations found by Adhikari and Panda (2018).

	Unprimed (n = 40)	Primed (n = 52)	p	Adhikari & Panda
Social Networks (n = 92)	M (SD)	M (SD)		M (SD)
Perceived severity	3.22 (1.19)	2.84 (1.30)	0.12	5.83 (1.05)
Perceived vulnerability	5.01 (1.25)	4.83 (1.49)	0.80	5.58 (0.98)
Self-efficacy	5.32 (0.93)	5.52 (0.93)	0.42	5.61 (1.14)
	Unprimed (n = 41)	Primed (n = 54)
Email (n = 95)	M (SD)	M (SD)	p
Perceived severity	3.42 (1.42)	3.50 (1.63)	0.96
Perceived vulnerability	3.78 (1.44)	4.16 (1.58)	0.27
Self-efficacy	4.33 (1.50)	4.60 (1.49)	0.38
	Unprimed (n = 40)	Primed (n = 51)
Cloud storage (n = 91)	M (SD)	M (SD)	p
Perceived severity	3.90 (1.49)	3.73 (1.88)	0.55
Perceived vulnerability	3.88 (1.45)	4.48 (1.44)	0.05
Self-efficacy	4.25 (1.43)	4.80 (1.59)	0.08

Table 6. Percentages of answers per category to the three data-fabrication strategies.

	I don’t know how to do this	I know how to do this, but I don’t do it	I know how to do this but I do it seldomly	I know how to do this, and I do it often	I know how to do this, and I always do it
Data fabrication (n = 95)
Providing an incorrect date of birth when asked for on a webpage	0.0	29.5	38.9	24.2	7.4
Providing an incorrect phone number when asked for on a webpage	2.1	21.1	35.8	31.6	9.5
Providing an incorrect gender when asked for on a webpage	2.1	62.1	23.2	7.4	5.3

Table 7. Correlations between fabrication strategies and perceived severity, perceived vulnerability and self-efficacy for each of the three domains (social networks, email and cloud storage).

	Providing an incorrect date of birth	Providing an incorrect phone number	Providing an incorrect gender
Social Networks (n = 92)
Perceived severity	0.00	−0.02	0.00
Perceived vulnerability	0.01	0.06	−0.08
Self-efficacy	0.06	0.01	−0.05
Email (n = 95)
Perceived severity	0.14	−0.05	0.04
Perceived vulnerability	−0.01	0.10	0.07
Self-efficacy	0.13	0.19	−0.08
Cloud storage (n = 91)
Perceived severity	0.00	−0.09	−0.10
Perceived vulnerability	0.11	0.04	0.14
Self-efficacy	0.20	0.29*	0.18

Spearman’s Rho was calculated as all variables differed significantly from a normal distribution. *p < 0.01

Table 8. Percentages of answers to the data protection questions.

	I don’t know how to do this	I know how to do this, but I don’t do it	I know how to do this, but I do it seldomly	I know how to do this, and I do it often	I know how to do this, and I always do it
Social networks (n = 52)
Adjusting the settings for who can see and react to comments and posts	3.8	7.7	9.6	30.1	48.1
When I receive a connection request, checking from which person this request is sent	1.9	0.0	1.9	21.2	75.0
Deleting old posts the content of which I no longer support	1.9	9.6	19.2	19.2	50.0
Preventing others from tagging me in their pictures	17.3	11.5	30.8	15.4	25.0
E-Mail (n = 54)
Using two-factor-authorization for my email account	41	11.1	20.4	18.5	9.3
I always log out after checking my emails	5.6	44.4	20.4	11.1	18.5
After writing an email I double check the recipients before sending it	0.0	3.7	9.3	33.3	53.7
I know how to check the email address of a sender	5.6	7.4	20.4	31.5	35.2
Cloud storage (n = 51)
I consider carefully, which data (including photos) I save online and which ones I only save offline	9.8	17.6	15.7	29.4	27.5
I do not post any links to my online saved documents and photos which are also accessible to strangers	13.7	9.8	5.9	11.8	58.8
When I share online data with others, I select what they are allowed to do with it (e.g., view, edit, download)	15.7	7.8	9.8	23.5	43.1
Every now and then I check if it still makes sense that people have access to data that I had previously shared with them	13.7	17.6	11.8	13.7	43.1

Figure 1. Correlations between perceived vulnerability, self-efficacy, perceived severity and the use of protection strategies.

Adhikari, K., & Panda, R. K. (2018). Users’ information privacy concerns and privacy protection behaviors in social networks. Journal of Global Marketing, 31(2), 96–110. https://doi.org/10.1080/08911762.2017.1412552

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