The Use of Digital Texts as an Alternative Method of Determining Functional ICT Literacy Levels

The aim of this study was to determine ICT literacy levels using a situated approach, targeting the functional understanding of technical terms contained in digital everyday culture texts. A cohort of 70 first year undergraduate Education students participated in the study. The assessment task included writing definitions for 47 technical terms which were derived from a series of digital texts, such as songs and advertisements. Students’ definitions were evaluated using a simple rating scale. Results indicated that for two-thirds of the terms examined students’ understanding ranged from medium to high. On the other hand, students’ understanding of the remaining one-third of the terms was either poor or minimal. Furthermore, the correlation of students’ understanding of the terms with student’s self-reported familiarity with software applications was low to moderate. The paper is concluded with a discussion of the potential of using popular cultural texts as an alternative approach for assessing levels of functional ICT literacy. The Use of Digital Texts as an Alternative Method of Determining Functional ICT Literacy Levels