Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 53, December 2015, Pages 149-160
Computers in Human Behavior

Full Length Article
Moving beyond cognitive elements of ICT literacy: First evidence on the structure of ICT engagement

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.07.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The concept ICT engagement is proposed.

  • ICT engagement integrates metacognitive and motivational facets.

  • The factors of interest, self-concept and social exposure were empirically confirmed.

  • Correlations with constructs of ICT knowledge and emotion were as expected.

Abstract

The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is of immense importance in today’s digital knowledge society. As a basis for private and vocational participation in society, ICT literacy has been widely discussed in recent decades. Although motivational and metacognitive facets play an important role in developing ICT literacy and competence, studies assessing media, computer or ICT literacy often fail to present a comprehensive concept on these motivational and metacognitive facets. This article addresses this issue by integrating them into the concept of ICT engagement. Its theoretically deduced dimensions of ICT-related interest, self-concept related to the use of ICT, and social exposure to ICT were analyzed in an explorative study assessing N = 445 students aged between 14 and 17 years in the German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. The obtained dimensional structure included the assumed factors, and suggested to distinguish a positive and a negative self-concept on using ICT as well as to separate interest in computers and interest in mobile devices factor. The ICT engagement dimensions were related to individual differences in behavioral, cognitive and emotional ICT constructs as expected.

Introduction

As computer technology has increasingly pervaded most areas of people’s life in recent decades, individual competencies related to the use of information and communication technology (ICT) have become a necessary precondition for professional success as well as a crucial factor for private life (Blossfeld, 2010, Kozma, 2009, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2007). Over the past two decades, diverse approaches on ICT competencies have been proposed, amongst others in the field of empirical educational research (ETS, 2002, Gonzalez et al., 2012, Richter et al., 2010). The variety of approaches corresponds to a diversity of applied terms, for instance, media literacy, media competence, computer literacy, information literacy, or digital literacy (cf. Lee and So, 2013, Zylka et al., 2011). In empirical educational research, approaches have lately focused on the construct of ICT literacy (ETS, 2002, Goldhammer et al., 2014).

According to ETS (2002, p. 2), ICT literacy is to be understood as a meta-competence not only relating to technical knowledge but also to enabling individuals to use “digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate and create information in order to function in a knowledge society”. These abilities are highly important for getting along in a changing global society as well as for life-long learning (Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman, 2014, p. 19). ICT literacy can be perceived as a continuum comprising the above-mentioned five abilities (i.e., access, management, integration, evaluation and creation of information), thus comprehending a specific set of skills that changes over the lifespan (ETS, 2002, Senkbeil et al., 2013). Although it is well known that literacy is subject to change over time and that diverse factors such as gender, personal experiences or social involvement influence learning and the development of literacy, a comprehensive concept integrating these conditions and factors has not been presented so far.

As regards ICT literacy, previous research has actually emphasized the relevance of motivational factors for ICT usage, performance and knowledge (e.g. Igbaria et al., 1995, Richter et al., 2010, Senkbeil et al., 2013, Shu et al., 2011, Sáinz and Eccles, 2012, Wit et al., 2012) and the connection between using ICT and general learning motivation in specific didactic scenarios (e.g., Leng, Ali, Baki, & Mahmud, 2010). At the same time, no comprehensive approach has been presented integrating motivational and metacognitive facets as conditioning factors for developing and adapting ICT skills in a self-regulated. Thus, a theoretically justifiable conceptualization and measure is necessary, enabling researchers to investigate those metacognitive and motivational factors that are assumed to facilitate intrinsically motivated use of ICT and the development of related skills through life span.

Section snippets

Connecting ICT and media literacy to ICT engagement

The terminology that is applied to knowledge of and skills to use digital technologies differs strongly and depends on countries and scientific discourse (Badke, 2009, Zylka et al., 2011). (Digital) media-related abilities are often discussed in the context of media education, to a lesser degree also in computer science, and also from the measurement perspective also in empirical educational research. Besides ICT literacy, the following terms can be found: media education (e.g. Parola &

Introducing ICT engagement

In today’s digital knowledge societies, ICT literacy is required in nearly all areas of work and ICT-related competencies are an essential component of employability (e.g., Drigas, Ioannidou, Kokkalia, & Lytras, 2014, p. 1500; Gallardo-Echenique, de Oliveira, Marqués-Molias, & Esteve-Mon, 2015). They are a precondition for successful teaching and learning, efficient private and vocational communication as well as participating in society in general (e.g., De Pablos, Tennyson, & Lytras, 2014).

Research goals and hypotheses

Our literature review suggests that the newly developed construct of ICT engagement comprises at least three related dimensions: ICT-related interest, Self-Concept related to the use of ICT, and Social exposure to ICT. Based on our conceptualization, we developed a new questionnaire for measuring the various dimensions of ICT engagement. The measure was designed to tap in particular the ICT engagement of adolescents. Unlike children they can be expected to show relative stable interests (cf.

Sample

Mainly two assumptions guided the selection of schools and students for the study. First, the ICT engagement measure was developed to assess adolescents. Second, participants need to be familiar with computers and state-of-the-art ICT and use them regularly. One possible group fulfilling these requirements are students aged around 15 years, who generally have their own computers, laptops, smartphones and internet access in Germany (Behrens and Rathgeb, 2012, MPFS, 2013).

The convenience sample

Results

In the following, we first present results on Hypothesis 1 which are based on an explorative factor analysis. Then, to investigate Hypotheses 2 and 3 the findings from two confirmatory factor analyses are presented.

Conclusion and future work

This article presents the newly developed concept of ICT engagement, a new measurement of ICT engagement, and first empirical results on the measure’s dimensional structure and construct validity. The study adds significantly to the research field of ICT-related competencies by focusing and structuring metacognitive and motivational context variables which are regarded as facilitating factors of intrinsically motivated and self-regulated ICT activities including the continuous development and

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