Digital Literacy is a contested concept
• The ability to use digital technology, communication tools or networks to locate, evaluate, use and create information. 1
• The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers. 2
• A person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment... Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media, to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments. 3
Resources
1. Digital Strategy Glossary of Key Terms http://www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz/Media-Centre/Glossary-of-Key-Terms/ accessed August 21, 2008.
2. Paul Gilster, Digital Literacy, New York: Wiley and Computer Publishing, 1997, p.1.
3. Barbara R. Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne L. Flannigan: Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century;
Hi Michael
You can use computer self-efficacy instrument for that regard or see the link below
http://apescience.com/id/fulltext/research-on-digital-literacy-assessment-instruments
Michael,
I developed my own instrument called the Digital Search Literacy. It has a decent pilot Cronbach’s Alpha of .792 for 50 items, and I carefully mapped it to ILCSHE outcomes, as well as to other literacy and educational standards.
SAILS and iSkills both boast of good reliability, but they cost. I first thought TRAILS would be a good contender because it is heavily used at high schools, but a pilot test at my university showed weak reliability-at least for my students. CAUL based on New Zealand and Australian information literacy standards has a different way to measure it, but at the time I called, the person responsible was out for a month.
Michael,
You are probably aware of the Australian ACER and their great researcher John Ainley. Ainley have been leading much of the assessment work on digital literacy in Australia and also internationally. The IEA ICILS study is an example of an important project in assessing DL. Further, in Norway we have developed a national screening test for K4 (10yrs old) where about 60 % (40k students) of the population have taken the test. Several other rather large scale tests have been made, escpecially for the city of Oslo.
I see there are some initiatives mentioned here already. I will definately look some of these up, thanks for sharing.
Hi Michael,
Apologies if this is slightly tangential to your original question, however, how does this relate to the term 'Data Literacy'?
I have seen this defined similarly eg "Data literacy – defined here as the ability to identify, retrieve, evaluate and use information to both ask and answer meaningful questions"
Perhaps Data literacy is a more general term compared to digital literacy which refers to data available via digital access, however I would think digital or non- digital makes little difference to the foundational skills required to make appropriate use of the data.
This is discussed in this piece from the UK, with identification of the many issues related to data provenance, etc that can lead to misleading interpretation of data from eg Open Data initiatives. Do these instruments also identify the basic analytical skills required to accurately interpret data?
This is very pertinent to healthcare which has an added layer of complexity and privacy regimes. I have seen some efforts in Data Literacy training in healthcare that seem very valuable ( http://www.uihi.org/projects/demystifying-data/resources/) Would the suggested digital literacy instruments also be suitable in the context of measuring the effectiveness of a (digital) data literacy program in health? I believe this is a very important skill we need to develop in our health workforce to help ICT realise its potential in the transformation of health services.
http://pearsonblueskies.com/2011/how-open-data-data-literacy-and-linked-data-will-revolutionise-higher-education/
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