Digital literacy: levels and development among Chinese postgraduate students
Mengjie, JIANGInstitute of Learning Innovation
University of [email protected]
OutlineMy roleBackgroundImportanceResearch objective and questionsLiterature reviewReferences
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1. Born and brought up in China2. An international postgraduate student3. An extension of the Master’s dissertation research
My role (My personal rationale)
BAIDU
CNKI
RENREN
SINA BLOG
Google Scholar
Google Books
YouTube
In China In the UK
Source: Mengjie, J (2011, p.70)Fig. 1. Changes in the use of participatory web tools by Chinese overseas postgraduate students
Research Background
• Networked student (www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA)
• Digital literacy - an essential educational aim that fits ‘all disciplines, all learning environments and all levels of education’ (ACRL, 2000, p.3).
• Transnational higher education-about 585,000 Chinese students will be seeking university education in the UK by 2020 (The Economist, 10 Mar 2012).
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The importance of the study
Increasing internationalisation in higher education calls paying attention to the needs of diverse students groups, and universities need to remodel their curricula to support international students (Ramsden, 2008).
This study will help to collect data and evidence from non-Western students (Chinese postgraduate students) on their digital literacy skills.
Research objective and questions
The main objective: To investigate the levels of digital literacy among Chinese students in universities (in the UK and in China), and the reasons for the different levels.
Research questions:
1). What are the different levels of digital literacy among Chinese postgraduate students in Chinese higher education institutions and those in UK higher education institutions?
2). What are the factors leading to the different levels of digital literacy among Chinese postgraduate students in Chinese higher education institutions and those in UK higher education institutions?
3). How can Chinese international higher education students be better supported to make full use of web technologies in UK higher education institutions?
Literature review: What is digital literacy?
‘The ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers’ (Gilster, 1997).
‘The awareness, attitude and ability of individuals to appropriately use digital tools and facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyze and synthesis digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process’ (Martin, 2005).
‘Representation’, ‘Language’, ‘Production’ and ‘Audience’ (Buckingham, 2007)
Literature review: What are the elements of digital literacy?
Access; Manage; Integrate; Evaluate; Create; Communicate (CETF, 2008).
Statement; Identification; Accession; Evaluation; Interpretation; Organization; Integration; Analysis; Synthesis; Creation; Communication; Dissemination; Reflection (Martin, 2006)
the essential elements of digital literacies (cited in Belshaw, 2013):
Cu (cultural)
Cg(cognitive)
Cn(constructive)
Co(communicative)
Cf(confident)
Cr(creative)
Ct(critical)
Ci(civic)
Fig1: Levels of digital literacy in action (Cited in Martin, 2006)
Level I: Digital competence (skills, concepts, approaches, attitudes, etc. )
Level II: Digital usage (professional/discipline application)
Level III: Digital transformation (innovation/creativity)
Social action (embedded in life context)
setsTask/problem
digital usages (embedded in task context)
Resources• text• images• multimedia• etc.
state
identifyaccessintegrateevaluateinterpretanalyse
synthesizecreate
communicatedisseminate
reflect
digital tools
digital tools
Product• re-presented• information• new knowledge• media
expression
Outcome/solutioninstigates
Social action (affect life context) Fig1: levels of digital literacy in action (adopted in Martin, 2006, p.255)
Literature review: Levels of digital literacy in action
Fig 2: Digital competence framework (cited in Calvani et al, 2009, p. 162)
Literature review: digital competence framework
Data collection
Pilot study [from July, 2013]
Main study [from January,2014]
ACRL (2000) Information Literacy Competency standards for higher education. Available at http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/standards/standards.pdf, accessed 15th Feb, 2013.
Belshaw, D. (2013) What is digital literacy? Eight (8) essential elements. The search Principle: views are my own, [blog] March 5, 2013, Available at http://blogs.ubc.ca/dean/2013/03/what-is-digital-literacy-eight-8-essential-slements/, accessed 18 th June, 2013.
Buckingham, D. (2007) Digital media literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the Internet . Research in comparative and international education, 2(1), 43-55.
Calvani, A., Fini, A. & Ranieri, M. (2009) Accessing digital competence in secondary education-issues, models and instruments. In Learning, M. (Eds) Issues in Information and media literacy: Education, practice and pedagogy . Santa Rosa: Informing Science Press.
CETF (November, 2008) California ICT digital literacy Policy framework. Available at http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/California%20%20ICTPolicy%20Framework.pdf, accessed 9 th May, 2013.
Gilster, P. (1997) Digital literacy, New York: John Wiley.
Martin, A. (2005) DigEuLit- a European framework for digital literacy. A Progress Report. Journal of eLiteracy, 2, 130-136.
Martin, A. (2006) DigEuit: Concepts and tools for digital literacy development. Available at http://journals.heacademy.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.11120/ital.2006.05040249, accessed 5 th June, 2013.
Ramsden, P. (2008) The future of higher education teaching and the students experience. The Higher Education Academy. Available at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/consultations/paulramsden_teaching_and_student_experience, accessed 15 th Feb, 2013.
The Economist (10 Mar, 2012) Pretty Poly: The new universities are 20 years old, and still spry. Available at http://www.economist.com/node/21549955, accessed 10 October, 2012.
References
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