Impacts of Internet literacy and Internet contact on the communication effect of university students' ideological and political education in China

Abstract

BackgroundInternet has made the communication environment of ideological and political education (IPE) more complex for university students. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the impact of university students' Internet literacy and contact on the communication effects of IPE. MethodsA total of 2283 Chinese university students were recruited to complete verified online questionnaires on Internet literacy, Internet contact duration, and the communication effects of IPE. SPSS V20 statistical software was used for the ordinal logistic regression analysis, chi-square test, and t-test. ResultsUp to 95.31 % of the university students obtained information through the Internet. There were significant differences between the ILS-high (54.93 %) and ILS-low (45.07 %) groups in both Internet literacy (P < 0.001) and Internet contact (P < 0.001). When comparing the communication effects of IPE between the ILS-high and ILS-low groups, both groups had the best emotional items and the worst cognitive dimensions. Internet literacy, Internet contact, major, and gender significantly impacted the communication effects of IPE. ConclusionIn the Internet era, there is an urgent need to improve university students' Internet literacy, so that they can have high Internet self-control contact skills to give full play to the positive guiding role of network media and improve the communication effects of university students' IPE.