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Digital Literacy as a Boost Factor in Employability of Students

Conference Paper  in  Communications in Computer and Information Science · October 2016

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-52162-6_17

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 Digital Literacy as a Boost Factor in Employability of
Students

Radovan Vrana

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia

rvrana@ffzg.hr

Abstract. Digital literacy is an important and evolving concept having influence

on the status of current and future work force as the labor market is being
transformed globally by implementation of digital technology. The existing jobs
are being redefined and new jobs are being created presenting new demands for
updated ICT related knowledge and skills often called digital literacy. Digital
literacy is directly related to the individual’s employability which is represented
by the combination of factors and processes which enable people to get employed
and to stay in employment or to move on in the workplace. To achieve this goal,
universities around the world adapt their study programs according to the needs
of the labor market. Having this in mind, this paper investigates the current state
of digital literacy in student population at the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia (FHSS) and its relationship to their employability.
Keywords: Digital literacy, employability, Croatia.

1 Introduction

Transformation of the society from analog to digital as well as digital ubiquity have
influenced almost all aspects of our lives. Areas like playing, working, socializing [1],
literacy as well as educational practice [2] and, finally, the labor market have been
transformed significantly. The labor market transformations are happening globally and
are changing the existing jobs by redefining them and creating new ones with new
demands for updated ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) related
knowledge and skills. Today, "the large majority of jobs require an understanding of
technology" [3, p.4] and employees should possess "the ability to use appropriate
technologies for communication, collaboration and information management" [4].
Employees must possess "the ability to manipulate a device and to find relevant content
using the device" [1, p.266]. These and related skills are called digital literacy skills and
constitute an important topic in the learning programs leading to the professional
qualifications [5]. Generally speaking, digital literacy skills are directly related to the
concept of employability as digital literacy aims to improve "employability because it
is a gate skill, demanded by many employers when they first evaluate a job application"
[6] and as such, it is important to students globally who are seeking employment.
2 Digital Literacy Definitions

Digital literacy is defined in a number of different ways adding and assuming new
meanings as each author defines it according to his or her view(s) of the matter. The
following part of the paper will present a selection of digital literacy definitions
followed by a list of extracted elements from these definitions identifying the core of
each definition. Each definition has a focus on different aspects of digital literacy thus
contributing to the general and evolving concept of digital literacy. One of the first
definitions of digital literacy was created by Paul Gilster [7, p.1] who defined digital
literacy as "the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a
wide range of sources when it is presented via computers." Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC) [8] analyzed approaches to use of open educational resources and
during that effort they provided two perspectives on digital literacy: functional access
to networks, devices, services, software and content that individuals require to exercise
and develop digital literacy; and the contexts for these practices / skills, including the
workplace, learning environments, the personal/social context and community
including the concept of identity and its manifestation in social networks, lifestyles,
learning and work communities. Jones-Kavalier and Flannigan [9] described digital
literacy as "a person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment, with
‘digital’ meaning information represented in numeric form and primarily for use by a
computer. Digital literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound,
images), to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and
apply new knowledge gained from digital environments." O'Brien and Scharber [10,
pp.66-67] defined digital literacy as a socially situated practice "supported by skills,
strategies, and stances that enable the representation and understanding of ideas using a
range of modalities enabled by digital tools. Digitally literate people not only represent
an idea by selecting modes and tools but also plan how to spatially and temporally
juxtapose multimodal texts to best represent ideas. Digital literacies enable the bridging
and complementing of traditional print literacies with other media." Karpati [6] chose
more detailed approach to digital literacy and included the use and production of digital
media, information processing and retrieval, participation in social networks for
creation and sharing of knowledge, and a wide range of professional computing skills.
For Visser [11], digital literacy is "the ability to use information and communication
technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both
cognitive and technical skills." Littlejohn, Beetham and McGill [12, p.547] wrote about
influence of digital literacy on life of an individual and society in general and offered
the following definition of digital literacy: "the capabilities required to thrive in and
beyond education, in an age when digital forms of information and communication
predominate." Hicks and Hawley-Turner [13, p.59] saw digital literacy as an
opportunity to "critically consume information, to create and share across time and
space, to co-create and collaborate to solve problems, to persevere in light of setbacks,
and to maintain flexibility." Park and Burford [1] investigated digital media literacy and
stated that "a digitally literate person is someone who can critically process media
content as well as communicate effectively using digital media." For Gruszczynska,
Merchant and Pountney [14] digital literacy was the general ability to use computers
alongside a set of skills such as the ability to use word processors or database software.
Finally, Boechler, Dragon and Wasniewski [15] did a literature review about the digital
literacy concept and found out a number of issues including: challenges in the research
base for conceptualizing digital literacy; the multiplicity of frameworks and models
which attempt to situate digital literacy but lack sound theoretical origins and wide
disagreement among stakeholders, disciplines as to what specific skills, knowledge and
understandings should fall under the umbrella term of digital literacy. And indeed, there
are so many definitions of digital literacy focusing on different skills, knowledge and
competences taking into account different theoretical foundations. Some of these
definitions demonstrate two extreme approaches in defining the term digital literacy:
they are either simple and include very few elements while others are very complex
attempting to take into account everything that could be found to be related to digital
literacy. Furthermore, some definitions are very concrete and detailed, while others are
very general and abstract. The following table represents the constituting elements of
the selected digital literacy definitions (due to the space restrictions).

Table 1. Elements and activities found in digital literacy definitions.

Element Activity
Collaboration Collaborate
Computer Information presentation
Context Workplace, society, learning environments, community
Data Reproduce
Flexibility Maintain
Formats Multiple
ICT (more general than Use, word processing, databases
computer element)
Ideas Represent, understand
Information Understand, use, present in numeric form, process, retrieve,
create, evaluate, find, communicate, share, consume
Knowledge Create, share
Media Read, interpret, complement with print media, use, produce,
process content, communicate
Networks Access to, social network
Open access Use
Sources Various

Though limited in number, the selected definitions are listed in a chronological order to
demonstrate a variety of approaches in describing elements of the evolving digital
literacy concept. Most definitions in this paper have focus on information and media
and media related activities, while other elements related to data or file formats,
networks and different computer related activities are included less frequently and
deemed less important to authors of the selected definitions. It is expected that digital
literacy definitions will add new meanings to ICT as it develops alongside with media
and society in general describing details about knowledge and skills necessary for
employment and professional and personal development of a modern citizen.
3 Digital Literacy and Employability

Digital literacy is closely related to employability. Employability is described as "the

combination of factors and processes which enable people to progress towards or get
into employment, to stay in employment, and to move on in the workplace" [16].
According to the document "Digital competence and employability" [17, pp.4-5],
(world) population aged between 16 and 74 show that 47 percent of the population have
either "low" or "no" digital skills which makes them not considered to be functional in
a digital society. Many factors influence one's employability: his or her ICT knowledge,
skills, and attitudes, level of formal education, social networks, a region or community’s
economic viability, social class, caste, gender stereotypes, learning styles, and labor
market dynamics [18, p.iv]. Board of Studies New South Wales in Australia published
a document "Employability Skills in Information and Digital Technology" [19] in which
they enumerated eight skills which would improve employability: communication,
teamwork, problem-solving, initiative and enterprise, planning and organizing, self-
management, learning and technology. Technology skills were further divided into:
having a range of basic IT skills, applying IT as a management tool, using IT to organize
data, being willing to learn new IT skills, having the knowledge to apply technology,
having the appropriate physical capacity. JISC [20] presented digital literacy in form of
a model with seven elements aiming to improve employability: media literacy,
communications and collaboration, career and identity management, ICT literacy,
learning skills, digital scholarship and information literacy. OECD saw digital skills as
something necessary for most jobs today as well as for future jobs for youth who will
be included in labor market [21]. All these skills and factors are important in achieving
employability and are part of many job requirements. As a result, students must be up
to date with the required skills and plan their future employment and career
development having job specific skills in mind. The next part of the paper presents
results from the research study about digital literacy and employability of students.

4 Digital Literacy and Students' Employability Research Study

To discover current perceptions and views about digital literacy and related topics in
the students’ population (future work force) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia (the FHSS), a research study was initiated. The purpose of the
research was to get an insight into the understanding of digital literacy among students
participating in the research and its relation to their employability. The objective of the
research was to identify potential challenging areas regarding understanding of the
digital literacy concept among students which could still be improved during their
education at the university. The hypothesis of the research was that students have
developed awareness of importance of their employability as a result of their learning
in digital literacy. An online (Web) survey with fifteen closed type questions was
chosen as the principal research method in this study for collecting data from students
at the FHSS. The research study was initiated on May 17, 2016 by sending an e-mail
invitation to the students’ mailing list and by publishing the invitation on the main Web
page of the FHSS. The online survey was closed on May 26th, 2016 with the total of
128 student participants.

4.1 Findings

Due to the space restrictions, only partial research study results will be presented here.
The first part of the results presents general data about the respondents.

Gender (N=127)

Seventy-nine point four percent (N=97) of the respondents were female and 23.6
percent (N=30) were male students.

Year of the Study (N=126)

The respondents were divided into groups according to year of the study as follows:
first year of the undergraduate study – 28.6 percent; second year of the undergraduate
study – 4 percent; third year of the undergraduate study – 11.1 percent; fourth year of
the undergraduate study – 0.8 percent; first year of the graduate study – 10.3 percent;
second year of the graduate study – 18.3 percent; advanced university student – 15.1
percent; not a student of a reformed study program – 7.9 percent and postgraduate study
– 4 percent. The invitation for the participation in the research was sent to all student at
the FHSS. The number of responses is different for each year of the study as students
decided to participate in the research on their own as the sample was not a stratified but
a convenient one.

Most Frequently Used Devices in Students’ Daily Activities

Table 2. Use of devices in daily students’ activities (one answer per category possible).
Education Personal life Job (part time or full time)
Laptop 63 41 10
Desktop computer 38 16 31
Smartphone 19 90 1
Tablet 14 31 0
Digital camera 4 39 4
"Dumb" phone 3 22 6
MP3 player 3 38 1

The results indicate that laptop computers were most frequently used in education,
smartphones in personal life and desktop computers at job. The most diverse use of
devices of all types could be found in category "Personal life" in which all of the of the
offered devices were used more often than in categories "Education" and "Job". While
decline in use of desktop computers was expected (due to presumed mobility of
students) and laptop computers guarantee mobility of students, it is still surprising to
see smartphones and tablets used infrequently in education in 2016. Being an employee
at the same Faculty (the FHSS) at which the research study was conducted, the author
can assume that there are two reasons for this situation: inadequate quantity of
educational material prepared for use on mobile devices (and small screens) and still a
small number of students owning a mobile device.

Basic Knowledge about ICT (N=128)

The results in this question indicate that the education system is coming short when it
comes to teaching ICT related knowledge and skills. Almost half of the respondents or
48.4 percent (N=62) were self-taught about ICT and another 19.5 percent (N=25) were
taught about ICT as late as at the university. Twelve point five percent (N=16) of the
respondents started to acquire ICT related knowledge in elementary school (which is
excellent), 7 percent (N=9) in high school, 7 percent (N=9) used family supported
learning, 3.9 percent (N=5) took a course outside university, 0.8 percent (N=1) used
friends supported learning and 0.8 percent (N=1) learned in some other way. There is
an evident need for a change in educational system in which individuals would start to
acquire ICT related knowledge and skills as early as possible.

Estimation about Inclusion of ICT Related Topics in Individual's Education at

the Present Time

Table 3. Estimation about inclusion of ICT related topics in individual’s education at the
present time (1=insufficiently included, 5=sufficiently included).
1 2 3 4 5
Theoretical topics 17 21 18 38 32
Practical topics 26 29 32 27 11

According to the respondents’ estimation, theoretical aspects of education of ICT were

sufficiently covered in the current study programs at the FHSS while students felt
deficiency of practical ICT related knowledge. Due to the research limitations, the issue
of particular practical topics students would like to participate in was not researched
further. However, the results do suggest students’ familiarity with the theoretical aspects
of ICT which form a basis for becoming a digitally literate individual.

Willingness to Learn about ICT in the Long Term (N=128)

Table 4. Willingness to learn about ICT in the long term (1=no ready at all, 5=completely
ready).
1 2 3 4 5
N 2 6 15 38 67
% 1.6 4.7 11.7 29.7 52.3
Willingness to learn about ICT in the long term is related to the continuing education
after the graduation at the university for the respondents (as they have already reached
higher education level, for younger generations this willingness should starts earlier).
These results are very optimistic and indicate students’ willingness to continue their
educational development which is encouraging given the situation that they possibly
will not be offered to improve their ICT related knowledge and skills on equal terms
once they are employed.

During the Last Job Seeking Period, Have Your ICT Related Knowledge and
Skills Been Tested? (N=128)

While the students in the research study already confirmed that they received sufficient
theoretical knowledge about ICT and that they wanted to develop more practical skills,
only 9 percent of the respondents (N=12) were tested for ICT related skills in an actual
job interview, 53 percent of the respondents (N=68) weren't tested for ICT related skills.
One should take into account that 38 percent of the respondents (N=48) haven’t sought
part or full time job yet. It is expected that more students will be tested for their actual
ICT skills in future and this will have direct influence on their employment.

To Which Skills Do You Relate the Term Digital Literacy? (N=127)

Table 5. Skills related to digital literacy.

N %
Independent work with ICT 112 88.2
Use of ICT for access, evaluation, processing and synthesizing information 102 80.3
from various resources
Understanding concepts of ICT 96 75.6
Use of ICT for increase of personal productivity 78 61.4
Use of ICT for solving complex problems in real world 60 47.2
Ethical use of ICT in social life 59 46.5
Ethical use of ICT in private life 49 38.6
Communicating ideas outside immediate (academic, business, personal) 49 38.6
environment

This question tried to associate theoretical and conceptual skills related to digital
literacy. The association is different among the respondents but they put independent
work with ICT, use of ICT for various purposes and understanding concepts of ICT
highly on the list in this research study as three most important skills. Independent use
of ICT is most highly ranked perhaps because students who participated in this research
study were usually self-taught and were accustomed to being independent in their work.
Which of the Following Competences Do You Relate to Digital Literacy? (N=128)

Table 6. Competences related to digital literacy (first 10).

N %
Safe use, communication and retrieval of information on the internet 108 84.4
Use of digital devices 95 74.2
Word processing 91 71.1
Presentation design 84 65.6
Search for information supported by ICT 84 65.6
Discovery and protection from spam and other malicious software 82 64.1
Spreadsheet design 77 60.2
Use of social software for cooperation with other individuals 72 56.3
Creation of information by support of ICT 67 52.3

This question offered a more practical view on the digital literacy concept. Competences
in the table are ranked according to daily activities of students during which they relied
on the use of the internet and worked with various types of software in different ICT
supported activities. Due to the space restrictions, only first 10 competences are listed.

Use of Acquired Knowledge and Skills (N=128)

Table 7. Use of acquired knowledge and skills.

N %
In future job 117 91.4
In private life 115 89.8
In education at university 109 85.2
For self-employment 59 46.1
Other 2 1.6

Students are aware of the importance of knowledge and skills they acquired at the
university for their immediate future (after graduation) both in future jobs and in private
life. Self-employment is positioned rather low as students in this research study did not
see the digital literacy concept to be related to this type of employment.

Estimation of Level of Acquired Digital Literacy (N=127)

Table 8. Estimation of level of acquired digital literacy (1=insufficient, 5=excellent).

1 2 3 4 5
N 1 4 49 57 16
% 0.8 3.1 38.6 44.9 12.6

Students’ estimation of their level of acquired digital literacy was good to very good
which is an excellent result with prospects to become excellent as long as they will
continue to update their digital literacy related knowledge and skills. The results can be
attributed to the formal education received so far accompanied by self-education.
Estimation of Importance of Digital Literacy for Students’ Employability
(N=128)

Table 9. Importance of digital literacy for students’ employability (1=not important at all,
5=most important).
1 2 3 4 5
N 0 6 13 46 63
% 0 4.7 10.2 35.9 49.2

Results in this question revealed an acknowledgment of importance of digital literacy

for students’ employability. Most of the respondents considered digital literacy to be
very important or most important for their employability. By being digitally literate
students increase their chances for employment.

5 Conclusion

Digital literacy is an important and evolving concept directly related to the one’s
employability and prospects for keeping the job in the long term. Since the first
definition of digital literacy appeared, the labor market has changed significantly
demanding from researchers, educators, employers and students to advance their
understanding of digital literacy and related skills. The results are many views on digital
literacy and its different applications in education, at work and in private life. Today,
when an increased number of jobs has moved online, educational systems worldwide
are coping with changes in order to respond to the current needs of their national and
global labor market. The research study conducted at the FHSS showed that students
were aware of the importance of the digital literacy concept for boosting their chances
of employment. Furthermore, the research study confirmed their awareness of the
existence of the relationship between digital literacy and their employability. Grounds
for this conclusion can be found in the results of the same research study which revealed
that students estimated that they possess a significant quantity of ICT related
competences described in digital literacy definitions in the first part of the paper. As a
conclusion, we can say that mastering digital literacy skills will boost students’
employability and will help employers to acquire digitally literate work force.

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