Digital Dementia and Its Relationship with Academic Integration and Academic Self-Handicapping among University Students: A Predictive Discriminative Study

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Lecturer of Educational Psychology and Statistics - Faculty of Education, Al-Azhar University, Cairo.

Abstract

The present study aimed to explore the nature of the relationship between digital dementia and both academic integration and academic self-handicapping among university students. Additionally, it sought to examine the predictive power of academic integration and academic self-handicapping in relation to digital dementia, to determine which of the two variables contributes more significantly to digital dementia, and to identify differences in digital dementia levels in light of demographic variables (gender, academic major, and year of study).
The study sample consisted of 660 male and female students from Al-Azhar and Ain Shams Universities. Data were collected using three researcher-developed scales: the Digital Dementia Scale, the Academic Integration Scale, and the Academic Self-Handicapping Scale. The study adopted the descriptive approach and employed statistical analyses using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, multiple regression analysis, and the independent samples t-test.
The results revealed a statistically significant negative correlation between digital dementia and academic integration at the 0.01 significance level. Furthermore, a statistically significant positive correlation was found between digital dementia and academic self-handicapping at the 0.01 level. The findings also indicated that both academic integration and academic self-handicapping are significant predictors of digital dementia, with academic self-handicapping emerging as the stronger predictor, accounting for 34.1% of the total variance in digital dementia.
Additionally, the results showed statistically significant differences in digital dementia levels between males and females in favor of males at the 0.05 significance level. However, no significant differences were found between students of scientific and literary majors. The study also found statistically significant differences at the 0.01 level between first-year and fourth-year students, with fourth-year students exhibiting higher levels of digital dementia.
The results were discussed and interpreted, and several recommendations and suggestions were presented.  

Keywords

References

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