Measuring digital literacies: Junior high-school students' perceived competencies versus actual performance
The widespread belief is that youth, "digital natives", who live their entire lives in media-rich digital environments and are ubiquitously connected through social networks, naturally develop digital competencies. This study investigated digital literacies among 280 junior-high-school stu...
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| Veröffentlicht in: | Computers and education Jg. 126; S. 23 - 36 |
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| Hauptverfasser: | , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Elsevier Ltd
01.11.2018
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| Schlagworte: | |
| ISSN: | 0360-1315, 1873-782X |
| Online-Zugang: | Volltext |
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| Zusammenfassung: | The widespread belief is that youth, "digital natives", who live their entire lives in media-rich digital environments and are ubiquitously connected through social networks, naturally develop digital competencies. This study investigated digital literacies among 280 junior-high-school students with the aim of comparing participants' perceived digital literacy competencies and their actual performance in relevant digital tasks. The findings showed that only a few of participants' perceived skills were related to their actual performance. Generally, participants displayed high confidence in their digital literacies and significantly over-estimated their actual competencies. This gap was most evident in social-emotional skills, which were, on average, perceived by students as their strongest skills, while their actual level of performance was very low. Positive strong correlations were found between participants' self-reported evaluations of different digital skills, indicating their perception as a single factor, while actual performance tests revealed low-to medium-size correlations between different literacies. For educational decision-makers, the findings highlight the importance of designing training programs aimed to develop students' digital literacies, with a special emphasis on social-emotional competencies. Such training may enhance important competencies needed, reduce unfounded self-perceptions, and thus, develop efficient digital functioning in contemporary society.
•Previous studies mostly explored students' self-report digital literacies.•This study compares six perceived digital literacies with their actual performance.•Students (n = 280, age∼13) significantly over-estimated their digital competencies.•Perceived literacies were high to very-high, while performance was average-low.•This perception-performance gap was most evident in social-emotional literacies. |
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| ISSN: | 0360-1315 1873-782X |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.compedu.2018.06.030 |