Navigating digital piety: self-reported associations between digital consumption patterns and Islamic character among generation Alpha Madrasah students, and the moderating role of digital parenting

This exploratory cross-sectional study examined self-reported associations between digital consumption patterns and Islamic character among Generation Alpha primary-school students, and tested whether digital parenting moderates that association. Survey data were collected from 150 upper-primary students (ages 9–12, grades 4–6) across 31 Madrasah Ibtidaiyah in Sambas Regency, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. All three constructs were measured by child self-report on a five-point Likert scale, and analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4.0. Digital consumption was positively associated with self-reported Islamic character (β = 0.683, p < .001). Digital parenting showed a significant negative direct association (β = -0.211, p < .001) yet positively moderated the consumption-character association (β = 0.126, p = .002), giving a total effect of β = 0.815 and explaining 79.2% of the variance in Islamic character. Because the data are cross-sectional, single-source self-reports collected in school under teacher facilitation, the results are read as apparent associations between children’s perceptions of their own digital behaviour, their parents’ mediation, and the moral self they consider desirable to report, not as causal effects on moral conduct. The findings extend religious-education scholarship on digital learning and parental mediation into the under-researched primary Madrasah Ibtidaiyah setting.