Predicting Secondary School Students’ 21st-Century Skills Through Their Digital Literacy and Problem-Solving Skills

Abstract

The research aims to determine whether secondary school students’ digital literacy and problem-solving skills predict 21st-century skills. It is a correlational survey study. The population of the research is the students studying in secondary schools in formal education institutions in Elazig. The sample of the research is 490 secondary school students determined by the disproportionate cluster sampling method. Data collection tools in the research are demographic information form, digital literacy scale, problem-solving inventory for primary school children, and 21st-century skill scale. The research makes use of parametric tests for the analysis of the data as the data fulfill the normal distribution condition. The results show that while the digital literacy and 21st-century skill levels of secondary school students are not very high, their problem-solving skills are high. The results also show that the problem-solving and 21st-century skill levels of secondary school students differ significantly by gender, and mother and father’s education level while there is no significant difference between secondary school students’ digital literacy levels by their father’s education level. The results of the research also show that there is a positive and moderately significant relationship between the problem-solving skills of secondary school students and their digital literacy levels. The results also indicate that there is a significant relationship between the communication sub-dimension of secondary school students’ 21st-century skills and digital literacy levels, and between the “confidence in problem-solving skills” and “avoidance” sub-dimensions of problem-solving skills. While the significant relationships identified are negative in the avoidance sub-dimension, they are positive in other dimensions. The results show that digital literacy and problem-solving skills do not significantly predict secondary school students’ 21st-century skill levels. However, secondary school students’ 21st-century skill and problem-solving skill levels significantly predict their digital literacy level.