The Impact of Digital Literacy Training on Learning Performance of University Students in a Problem-Based Learning Environment

Abstract

Problem-based learning (PBL) has emerged as an innovative educational approach, and it is increasingly gaining its prominence in the higher education in Malaysia. Past research shows that digital literacy competence has strong and positive influence on academics’ motivation and academic productivity. However, there is little research carried out to examine the impact of digital literacy skills on the improvement of learning performance of university students in PBL environment. This study aims to examine the influence of digital literacy skills training on the learning performance of university students in the Physics course conducted in PBL approach. This study utilises Solomon four-group design by setting up two experimental groups and two control groups for the experiment. Seventy eight students in the School of Liberal Arts and Science of Taylor’s University in Malaysia participated in this study. The study investigated whether digital literacy skills training would improve the learning performance of the university students and if a cause and effect relationship existed between digital literacy skills training and learning performance. The independent variable of this study was the digital literacy skills training. The dependent variables were the learning performance scores which constitute two subjective measures, namely, learning satisfaction and learning attitude, and one objective measure, the learning score. A between-group factorial ANOVA showed that the treatment of digital literacy did have an impact on learning performance. The findings inferred that there was a cause and effect relationship (causation) between digital literacy skills training and improvement in learning performance of university students in PBL environment. The philosophy of learning through problem-solving process in PBL is conceptually parallel to digital literacy competency standards for higher education. This study confirmed that digital literacy skills training may help raise the learning performance of university students learning under PBL environment.