RESEARCH PAPERS

DIGITAL LITERACY OF SELECTED SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

STUDENTS: AN ANALYSIS FOR ONLINE EDUCATION READINESS

By
EUNICE E. LAUDATO * CHRISTOPHER H. PUNZALAN **
* Lyceum of the Philippines University, Cavite, Philippines.
** National University, Manila, Philippines.

Date Received: 22/01/2021 Date Revised: 16/03/2021 Date Accepted: 20/03/2021

ABSTRACT
The demand for Education 4.0 is believed as response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Founded on this concept,
learners are expected to be digitally literate since Education 4.0 promotes novel ways of learning that focuses on
collaboration of men and machines. For this reason, this quantitative-correlational study aimed to analyze the readiness of
204 senior high school students for online education by evaluating the extent of their digital literacy based on sex, strand
and grade level, and the interrelationship across their digital literacy domains. It adapted a survey questionnaire from
relevant studies that focuses on six digital literacy domains. Results showed that there are significant differences in the extent
of digital literacy domains namely Media Analysis, Effective Application of Technology and Interaction through
Technologies among the students in terms of sex. Meanwhile, there are no significant differences in the extent of digital
literacy of the students in terms of strand and grade level across the six domains as shown by the p-values. When it comes to
the relationship between and within the domains of digital literacy of students, results emphasized that the moderate
positive correlations among all domains are significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The study recommends to schools to
have a focused and improved program that may help male students to cope with the demands of digital learning.
Furthermore, there should be quality teaching-learning innovations in online education to promote the digital literacy of
senior high school students especially the males through the development of enhancement curricula. Digital literacy
across all subjects in senior high school should be integrated and enhanced, especially in the conduct of online education
in order to realize the learning competencies of each subject area with provided activities and assignments inclined
towards the utilization of internet and online applications.
Keywords: Digital Literacy, Online Education, Senior High School, Education 4.0, COVID-19.

INTRODUCTION However, this transition in education may create varying

The 21st century learners are currently faced with the threat levels to student's competency and proficiency since

of the global COVID-19 pandemic where it requires the online learning environment is not accessible in isolated

closing of both public and private establishments like areas. Likewise, many of the educators are not well-versed

schools. From the traditional face-to-face mode of in technology despite having the best intentions to provide

learning, the sector of education and its learners alternative learning experiences amidst the pandemic. This

necessitated to move abruptly to online education.
This paper has objectives related to SDG
Member of:
is due to the reason that teaching staff themselves felt not
equipped to teach via online and still learning to use digital
platforms (Jaques & Salmon, 2007; Little-Wiles & Naimi,
2011; Rucker & Downey, 2016; Schmidt et al., 2016;
Thorsteinsson, 2013). Hence in this case, it poses a
multitude of challenges in both teaching and learning

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No. 2 l
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