School or home: Exploring the impact of digital infrastructure on digital literacy of school-age young people in a developing economy

Abstract

Digital literacy plays a very important role for a developing innovative economy, since one of the global trends significantly affecting the dynamics of open innovation is strengthening of the influence of digital technologies on all spheres of society. This paper seeks to study the impact of digital infrastructure on digital literacy of school-age young people, which starts and develops both at school and/or at home. This paper uses a balanced panel of statistical data that includes 18 regions of Kazakhstan surveyed for the period between 2016 and 2022 on four indicators: the level of digital literacy in Kazakhstan, the share of households with Internet access, the share of Internet users aged 6-15, and the number of students per PC in public schools. Methods of correlation, variance, and structural model analysis proposed hereby consist of successive stages and include five hypotheses for verification. The results have shown that (a) the literature has not accumulated a unified methodology for assessing digital literacy yet; (b) digital infrastructure in Kazakhstan’s public schools has been found to have a negligible impact on formation of digital literacy, as well as on the increase in the number of school-age Internet users; (c) the number of young school-age Internet users have been found to have a positive effect on formation of digital literacy in Kazakhstan; (d) access to the Internet at home has been found to have a significant stable impact on digital literacy in Kazakhstan and an increase in the share of young school-age Internet users. This paper is intended for decision makers, researchers, education and open innovation experts interested in opportunities for the development of citizens’ digital skills and competencies and the implementation of an open innovation economy strategy.