Attitudes of Czech College Students Toward Digital Literacy and Their Technical Aids in Times of COVID-19

Katarína Krpálková Krelová,Andrea Kubišová,Kateřina Berková,Pavel Krpálek

doi:10.3991/ijep.v11i4.20821

Abstract

At present, when the whole world is struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic, it is important to address both the issue of flexibility when educating the younger generation and the issue of further professional education, which contributes to the development of competences that are directly relevant to life and everyday activities in the 21st century. The common denominator of these competences is digital competence. It is the aspect of education that is of primary and crucial importance for digital literacy development. This re-search study aims at establishing the availability of digital media and atti-tudes towards one’s own technical aids and digital literacy among students of two higher education institutions in the Czech Republic. Empirical research involved 1233 college students. The set research hypotheses were tested with a questionnaire-based survey using the Likert scale. A cluster analysis was conducted in the SPSS program. In view of the ordinal nature of data, the nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test conducted at significance levels of 5% and 1% in SPSS was applied to test the dependence of competence self-assessment on the specialization of the higher education institutions/ study level/ study form. The research has unequivocally proven that digital literacy is influenced by education, in terms of the specific study programme special-ization, study level and study form.

Highlights

The current turbulent development of society with all the associated risks and problems, and the opportunities and challenges of the times is taking place under conditions of the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as Industry 4.0
It is important to address both the issue of flexibility in educating the younger generation and the issue of further education, which contributes to the development of competences directly relevant to life and everyday activities in the 21st century and simultaneously those required by the labour market [3], [4]. he common denominator among these transversal competences is digital competence
In view of the ordinal nature of data, the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test conducted at significance levels of 5% and 1% in SPSS was applied to test the dependence of competence self-assessment on the specialization of the higher education institution/ study level/ study form

Summary

Introduction

The current turbulent development of society with all the associated risks and problems, and the opportunities and challenges of the times is taking place under conditions of the accelerating Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as Industry 4.0. The fourth industrial revolution is characterised by digitalisation, sharing and a circular economy. These macrotrends are expanding into all sectors of the economy and are fundamentally changing the demands on education, structure and occupational activities. Some, non-existent in the past, have emerged and are subject to constant modification In this context, it is important to address both the issue of flexibility in educating the younger generation and the issue of further (professional and retraining) education, which contributes to the development of competences directly relevant to life and everyday activities in the 21st century and simultaneously those required by the labour market [3], [4]. It is the aspect of education that is of primary and crucial importance for digital literacy development [5], [6]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion