Perdana Et. Al.
Perdana Et. Al.
Perdana Et. Al.
2, Oktober 2019
ISSN: 2541-7207 DOI: 10.23887/jpi-undiksha.v8i2.17168
Abstract
Digital literacy becomes a vital issue in this present era. The study aims at investigating
students' digital literacy skills of students Grade X and XI in Senior High School in Yogyakarta. There
were three steps to this research. First, we constructed the item format and aspect of digital literacy
skills. Second, the administration of this research to 193 students of science class in Yogyakarta which
were selected randomly. The last analysis data of students' digital literacy skills based on educational
level. For the profile of students' digital, we used descriptive and quantitative statistics (frequency and
percent). To determine the significant difference between the students' level, we also used an
independent sample t-test. Result of this study showed that the students’ digital literacy skill of all
students was deficient level. Besides, there was a significant difference in students’ digital literacy skills
based on educational level. The conclusion was that students' digital literacy skill in Yogyakarta was
deficient, and there must be an effort to force these skills. The recommendation for the future study is
to develop a learning model that can enhance students' digital literacy skills. For the policymakers,
learning based on digital literacy skills must be integrated into the curriculum. ICT learning should be
taught to students in Indonesia, especially in Yogyakarta.
1. Introduction
The growth of digital culture in the twenty-first century has encouraged the use of digital
resources and communication tools in school education (Kong, 2014), so students are asked
to express their ideas in digital media (Chan, Churchill, & Chiu, 2017). Besides, they must also
be proficient at interacting with files include converting and creating graphics from one type to
another and using web-based tools to complete sophisticated tasks (Frydenberg, 2015).
The role of digital technology in daily life has increased in over the past few decades
(Bekker, Bakker, Douma, van der Poel, & Scheltenaar, 2015). Nevertheless, many
educational institutions have not fully embraced digital literacy as basic literacy equivalent to
reading, writing, and counting (Coffin Murray & Pérez, 2017). The adoption of digital literacy
skills to improve quality is an essential problem for the digital learning environment
(Techataweewan & Prasertsin, 2018).
For education professionals, the implication of increasing student involvement with
digital media is to help students develop knowledge, skills, and dispositions to live, contribute
and develop in the 21st-century digital world (Redmond, 2015). The success of students has
been linked to 'digital literacy' as citizens involved in building the nation in the future
(Pangrazio, 2016).
It is difficult to give a precise definition of "digital literacy" because this term has been
used for various meanings in the literature (Güneş & Bahçivan, 2018). Digital literacy often
seems to amount to a minimum of the skills that will allow users to operate effectively with
software tools, or in carrying out basic information search tasks (Buckingham, 2015). Digital
literacy has several elements such as critical thinking skills, creativity, building and evaluating
information, and using digital media effectively, and it can be developed as a result of students'
digital writing (Al-Qallaf & Al-Mutairi, 2016).
Digital literacy for learning is more than just knowing how to operate technology but
also having the right information management and critical thinking skills, as well as appropriate
online behavior (Tang & Chaw, 2016). Besides, digital literacy not only understands how tools
work but also why these tools are useful in the real world and when to use them (Alexander,
B., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, 2016). These skills represent a set of discrete abilities or
Literat (2014) assessed the psychometric properties of the newly tested self-report
assessment tool for media literacy, based on twelve new media literacy skills (NML) developed
by (Jenkin, Clinton, Purushotma, Robison, & Weigel, 2006).
Ainley, Schulz, & Fraillon (2016) review the definitions of digital literacy and ICT that
have been adopted in cross-national studies, investigate approaches to digital literacy and ICT
assessment that have been used in the study and articulate criteria that should guide the
development of a global measure of literacy skills digital and ICT. Siddiq, Gochyyev, & Wilson
(2017) develop test efforts to measure students' ability to handle digital information, to
communicate, and collaborate during problem-solving. Other research investigates digital
literacy among junior high school students to compare perceptions of participants' digital
literacy competencies and their actual performance in relevant digital tasks (Porat, Blau, &
Barak, 2018).
In Indonesia, especially the province of Yogyakarta, research on students' digital
literacy skills is still rare. In fact, as one of the major cities in Indonesia, this province must
have valid data regarding digital literacy skills. As a student city, Yogyakarta must be a role
model for other cities in following the current development of education in the 21st century. In
this study, we focused on measuring students' digital literacy skills and proving whether there
were differences in student skills based on education levels. The research questions in this
question are: (1) What is the level of students' digital literacy skills in Yogyakarta? (2) Are there
significant differences in the level of digital literacy skills based on educational levels?
2. Method
The first stage in measuring digital literacy skill of the students was defining what the
definition of digital literacy skill is and selecting the aspect of digital literacy skill that should be
targeted in this research. As described in the introduction, one of the difficulties in assessing
digital literacy skills is the widespread disagreement among researchers and educators about
what aspects can represent students' digital literacy skills. Therefore, we initially reviewed
available research on standardized digital literacy by considering several things. First, we aim
to identify the critical skills of digital literacy that are commonly developed. These critical skills
are the focus of our tests, and thus we can build the right kind of digital literacy skills. Second,
we determine the aspects studied by reflecting the existing digital literacy skills test so that the
selected aspects directly intersect with digital literacy skills. All components reviewed based
on (a) are following clear definition/concept of digital literacy, (b) whether the targeted digital
literacy skills are general, and (c) whether they represent digital literacy skills as a whole.
Based on the results of the review, the components of digital literacy skills examined in this
study are as in Table 1.
The test was administered to students grade X (N = 96) and grade XI (97) in senior
high school in Yogyakarta, was selected randomly. The students did not participate in any of
the previous pilot studies and were enrolled in the digital literacy aspect. The participant
consisted of 197 students between the ages of 13 – 17 years. Before the administration, the
participants were given the initial instruction regarding the goal of the test. They were also
given general direction about how to respond to the items and asked to take the test seriously.
The test was administered similarly to Tiruneh, De Cock, Weldeslassie, Elen, & Janssen
(2017), where hold in a controlled classroom setting and great caution was made for all
students to hand in the test so that test questions would not circulate. The participants were
not given a time limit to answer the questions given. However, we conveyed the possibility of
taking about 60 minutes to complete all the questions. About 90% of students can complete
within 50 minutes, and the rest is completed in 60 minutes.
We used SPSS version 16 to analyze data. For the profile of the students' digital
literacy skills, the descriptive and quantitative statistic was used, including frequency and
percent. The independent sample t-test was used to determine the significant difference in the
level of digital literacy skills of students in grade X and grade XI.
Among the ten questions that administrated on the students' Grade X, answers of the
students in internet searching show the highest mean of 1.56 (very low). Moreover, the
answers in knowledge assembly present the lowest mean of 1.02 (very low). It can be gleaned
from the table that students on Grade X have deficient level digital literacy skills (mean =
1.275, SD = 0.70). Table 3 shows the frequency and percent of students by each level of
digital literacy skill.
According Table 3, the students on Grade X have very low digital literacy skills (mean
= 1.275, SD = 0.00). Most (89.7% of total 97 students) of the students have a deficient level
of digital literacy skill while few (9.27%) students have a low level of digital literacy skill, and
only 1.03% of the students have an average level of digital literacy skill.
Based on the test, students on grade XI also were given ten questions according to
the aspect of digital literacy skills. The result revels in Table 4. The table shows the level of
their answer in the test.
Among the ten questions that administrated on the students' Grade XI, answers of the
students in internet searching also show the highest mean of 2.52 (very low). Moreover, the
answers in knowledge assembly also present the lowest mean of 0.73 (very low). It can be
gleaned from the table that students on Grade XI have deficient level digital literacy skills
(mean = 1.71, SD = 0.71). Table 5 shows the frequency and percent of students by each level
of digital literacy skill.
According Table 5, the students on Grade XI have very low digital literacy skills (mean
= 1.71, SD = 0.98). Most (80.2% of total 96 students) of the students have a deficient level of
digital literacy skill while few (8.3%) students have a low level of digital literacy skill, and 11.5%
of the students have an average level of digital literacy skill.
Data analysis of the students' answers from a digital literacy test. Using the average
score of students on Grade X and XI, the significant difference in their level of students' digital
literacy skills was determined using an independent sample t-test. The result is shown in Table
6.
Based on Table 6, the level of digital literacy skill of students in grade X is significantly
different (t = 4.204, P < 0.005) from the students in Grade XI. The students in grade XI mean
(1.71) difference of 0.44 over students in grade X (1.27) indicates that the level of students'
digital literacy skill in the grade XI is better than in the grade X. The higher digital literacy skill
of the grade XI is attributed to the learning they have during the teaching-learning process.
But, unfortunately, these skills also in the deficient level of digital literacy aspect.
Based on the results of the study, we know that all aspects of students' digital literacy
skills are still very low for both students of class X and class XI. The order of aspects of
students' digital literacy skills based on the highest to lowest average is internet searching,
content creation, hypertextual navigation, and knowledge assembly.
The aspect of internet searching is the highest value aspect in both classes (mean of
grade X = 1.56, mean of grade XI = 2.52) even though it is still at a deficient level. It is similar
to (Tarimo & Kavishe, 2017), who argue that the majority of internet users in secondary
schools do not have the right search skills to access information using the Internet. The reason
is the lack of training and skills in internet search strategies (Chirwa, 2018). It is because
students usually do not have enough skills to appraise the information on the internet
appropriately (Chiu, Liang, & Tsai, 2016). This deficient level can also be caused by English
language skills, where those who are proficient in English are better at searching for
information using the internet (Shirazi, Heidari, Fard, & Ghodsbin, 2019).
The second aspect of digital literacy skill in this study is content creation (mean of
grade X = 1.51, mean of grade XI = 2.10). Students' skills in this aspect are also at a deficient
level, even though this aspect provides opportunities for students to integrate and reflect on
media experience in everyday life (Costa, Tyner, Henriques, & Sousa, 2018). It can be caused
because they do not make great efforts on the sub-aspects of content creation, such as
networking with other content creators and their offline presence (Törhönen, Sjöblom, &
Hamari, 2018). Besides, they may not be able to use digital devices optimally to generate
ideas or develop a new method. One of the conceptual definition of content creation is to use
new ways of doing things (van Laar, van Deursen, van Dijk, & de Haan, 2017).
Hyper textual navigation is one of the problematic aspects of digital literacy skill, which
deficient level in this study (mean of grade X =, mean of grade XI =). One of the causes of
students' digital literacy skills that are still very low in this aspect is that students have difficulty
using computer equipment and software in selecting and reading information. It is similar to
(Cordeiro, de Abreu, & Estadieu, 2017), that based on the type of interactivity, hypertextual
navigation skills describe interactive pieces in which users must use computer equipment and
software to make reading choices in the database. Also, students may not often interact with
the media to make reading choices in the database user interface technology as a constructor
of customized and individualized data sets. Meanwhile, interaction with the media in making
choices is also a sub-aspect of hypertextual navigation (Tunalı, 2016).
4. Conclusion
Based on the results and discussion, students' digital literacy skills are at a deficient
level. The order of skills of the lowest to highest students are knowledge assembly,
hypertextual navigation, content creation, and internet searching. It shows that knowledge
assembly is the most challenging aspect of students' digital literacy skills, and internet
searching is a natural aspect. Nonetheless, students' digital literacy skills in Yogyakarta are
still deficient.
There is a significant difference between the digital literacy skills of class X students
and class XI. In other words, digital literacy skills are also influenced by the level of education.
These findings prove that digital literacy-based learning is still very much needed by students.
For the teachers, the learning process should always involve digital devices. Because learning
with digital devices can improve students' digital literacy skills.
For the policymakers, digital literacy-based learning processes should again be
integrated with the current curriculum. Besides, digital literacy learning is organized differently
at each level of education. It is because digital literacy skills possessed by students differ
based on the level of education. This level of different digital literacy skills requires different
subject matter at each level of the curriculum.
Recommendations for further research, researchers should start learning models that
are specifically for improving students' digital literacy skills. Besides, further research is
needed with other aspects of student digital literacy skills, so that it can add to the information
about the level of student digital literacy skills. Other studies can also focus on the leading
causes of why students' digital literacy skills are still deficient. It can be a basic guideline for
further research to address the problems of students' digital literacy skills.
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