The influence of academic discipline, race, and gender on web-use skills among graduate-level students

Abstract

There is a paucity of research on the digital literacy of graduate-level students. The study examined whether academic discipline, age, gender, race, parental education, international status, GPA, and self-perceived skills is associated with web-use skills among this population. Hargittai and Hsieh’s 27-item Web-use Skills Index was used to measure web-use skills. The Kruskal–Wallis H test with post hoc Fisher’s least significant difference test was used to determine statistical differences between groups of independent variables. Academic discipline, race/ethnicity, and gender had a greater number of statistically significant differences (p < .05) with 12, 15, and 20 variables respectively. Few web-skill variables were significantly different by age, GPA, international status, and parental education with 4, 3, 2, and 3 variables respectively. Gender plays a large role in the digital literacy of graduate and professional students compared to other demographic factors. This may be due to factors influenced by gender including family life, self-efficacy, and access to technology. The high web proficiency of Asian/Pacific Islander students is consistent with past research. However, African American students were more web-proficient than Caucasian students, which is inconsistent with previous research. Academic discipline may be independently associated with varying levels of web-use scores.