Digital Literacy Level and Career Satisfaction of Academics

Abstract

Technology affects educational institutions like every other field. Higher education institutions, which are the main source of new knowledge creation and dissemination, are now dominated by digital technologies. The acquisition of digital literacy skills, which is among the 21st-century competencies, is possible with the positive attitudes and skills of academics, who are instructors in higher education institutions, towards the use of digital technologies. As role models in strengthening digital literacy, academics should develop themselves in line with strategies that include elements of the digital age and more active learning, and be able to transfer these strategies to educational practices. Otherwise, it will not be possible to increase the quality of education and it is inevitable for academicians to experience career dissatisfaction with the feeling of failure. Despite the importance of the subject, digital literacy of academicians has not been adequately addressed in the literature and the relationship between academics' digital literacy levels and career satisfaction has not been focused. Based on this gap, in this study, the concept of "digital literacy" is handled specifically for academics working in universities operating in Istanbul, Turkey, and it is aimed to contribute to the literature by revealing the relationship between academics' digital literacy and career satisfaction. The cross-sectional survey method, a quantitative research technique, was utilized in the research as a data collection and analysis tool. For this purpose, the data collected through questionnaires from 304 academics with a simple random sampling method were analyzed. As a result of the analysis, it was found that academics' digital literacy explained the career satisfaction variable by 28.1% at a 0.01 significance level. Finally, the significant positive relationship between academics' digital literacy and career satisfaction can be interpreted as that academics who cannot develop digital literacy skills and transfer these skills to teaching environments will not be able to achieve career satisfaction by experiencing a sense of failure because they cannot provide an education in line with the expectations of the digital age. In addition, according to the research findings, it was found that the digital literacy and career satisfaction levels of the academicians differ according to age, working time, academic title, and having a personal web page.