I recently read “Knowledge and processes that predict proficiency in digital literacy”. Written by Bulger, Monica E., Richard E. Mayer, and Miriam J. Metzger. (Reading and Writing (2014): 1-17), it is the write up of a research endeavor designed to determine what knowledge and activities can be used to predict a person’s digital literacy. The sort of knowledge they looked at was quite specific—academic, domain & technical (p. 7-9). The processes they investigated dealt with information access and information use (p. 9-10).

Following a questionnaire, study participants were asked to use an internet-enabled computer to write a paper between one and two pages in length that discussed whether or not laptops use should be required in college classrooms. They were given 50 minutes for the assignment (p. 5-6).

The researchers main finding was that academic knowledge and the participant’s strategies for effectively selecting and integrating information, is more important than technical knowledge for digital literacy proficiency.

Discussion

In introducing the article, the researchers compared the technology-centered and learner-centered approaches to digital literacy. My conceptualization of digital literacy (influenced by the work of Antonio Cartelli) would lead me to collapse the dichotomy they put forth with academic and learner centered approaches into a cognitive domain.

In my view, their discussion, like many others, leaves out the social behavioral dimension.  As I see it, the social behavioral domain posits that there are social behaviors which people enact in the digital domain. These behaviors indicate their digital literacy proficiency. An example of a related social behavior in the academic environment is a student holding a web chat session with a librarian. Their ability to successfully articulate their needs will affect whether they get the support they need to complete their task. Additionally other behaviors that they do (e.g. texting, updating facebook, talking on the phone) while engaged in the chat session can also affect this.

Beyond the way the researchers operationalized digital literacy proficiency, the other notable thing was that although academic expertise had a significant impact on digital literacy proficiency, technical expertise also had a significant impact (p. 10). High technical knowledge helped low domain expertise students perform better.

Furthermore, participants that scored high on both academic and technical expertise performed exceptionally well on the online research task. The researchers found that all three types of expertise—academic, domain, and technical—affected people’s digital literacy proficiency. This finding is aligned with contemporary definitions of digital literacy (e.g. ALA Digital Literacy Taskforce) which describe digital literacy as a blend of technical, academic, and domain expertise. This finding supports the need for holistic frameworks. If the authors were to adopt a definition like ALA’s, they would need to measure additional things like how resources were found and evaluated.

In closing, I agree with the author, the tech-centric approach to digital literacy does not by itself lead to greater levels of digital literacy. Instead, it needs to be coupled with knowledge on how to make sense of and use information.