Digital divide: addressing Internet skills. Educational implications in the validation of a scale
Abstract
Recent studies indicate that Internet skills have a positive impact on academic achievement. This article presents a national study that seeks to validate an Internet skills scale that was already tested in other EU countries (the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) to understand the competence level of the population as a whole as well as across population sectors. The scale questionnaire was completed by a sample of the Italian population stratified by gender, age and geographical area. The result is globally consistent at the empirical level as well as at the cross-national level. All the five scales showed excellent internal consistency.
Downloads
References
Bagozzi, R.P. & Yi, Y. (1988) ‘On the evaluation of structural equation models’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 74–94.
Biesta, G. (2015) ‘What is education for?’, European Journal of Education, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 75–87. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12109.
Bollen, K.A. & Stine, R.A. (1992) ‘Bootstrapping goodness-of-fit measures in structural equation models’, Sociological Methods & Research, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 205–229. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124192021002004.
Carretero, S., Vuorikari, R. & Punie, Y. (2017) DigComp 2.1: The digital competence framework for citizens with eight proficiency levels and examples of use (No. JRC106281), Joint Research Centre (Seville site), EUR 28558 EN, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. https://doi.org/10.2760/38842.
Cedefop. (2017) On the Way to 2020: Data for Vocational Education and Training Policies. Country statistical overviews – 2016 update, Publications Office, Luxembourg, Cedefop research paper; No 61. https://dx.doi.org/10.2801/414017
Fornell, C. & Larcker, F.D. (1981) ‘Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error’, Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 39–50.
Gui, M. & Argentin, G. (2011) ‘Digital skills of Internet natives. Different forms of digital literacy in a random sample of northern Italian high school students’, New Media & Society, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 963–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810389751.
Gui, M., Fasoli, M. & Carradore, R. (2017) ‘“Digital well-being”. Developing a new theoretical tool for media literacy research’, Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 155–173. https://doi.org/10.14658/pupj-ijse-2017-1-8.
Hair, J., et al., (2010) Multivariate Data Analysis: A Global Perspective, Pearson Education, Singapore.
Helsper, E. J. & Reisdorf, B. C. (2017) ‘The emergence of a “digital underclass” in Great Britain and Sweden: Changing reasons for digital exclusion’, New Media & Society, vol. 19, no. 8, pp. 1253–1270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444816634676.
Kim, S.Y., et al., (2017) ‘The associations between internet use time and school performance among Korean adolescents differ according to the purpose of internet use’, PLoS One, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. e0174878. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174878
Leung, L. & Lee., P. (2012) ‘Impact of Internet literacy, Internet addiction symptoms, and Internet activities on academic performance’, Social Science Computer Review, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 403–418. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439311435217.
Litt, E. (2013) ‘Measuring users’ internet skills: A review of past assessments and a look toward the future’, New Media & Society, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 612–630. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813475424.
OECD. (2016) Skills for a digital world, Panel 4.2 background document, Ministerial Meeting, The Digital Economy: Innovation, Growth and Social Prosperity, Cancún, Mexico, 21–23 June 2016.
OECD. (2017) Skills strategy diagnostic report: Italy, OECD, Paris.
Pagani, L., et al., (2016) ‘The impact of digital skills on educational outcomes: Evidence from performance tests’, Educational Studies, vol. 42, no. 2, pp. 137–162. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2016.1148588.
Rosseel, Y. (2012) ‘lavaan: An R Package for structural equation modeling’, Journal of Statistical Software, vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02.
Satorra, A. & Bentler, P. M. (2001) ‘A scaled difference chi-square test statistic for moment structure analysis’, Psychometrika, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 507–514.
Scheerder, A., van Deursen, A.J.A.M. & van Dijk, J.A.G.M. (2017) ‘Determinants of Internet skills, uses and outcomes. A systematic review of the second- and third-level digital divide’, Telematics and Informatics, vol. 34, pp. 1607–1624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.07.007.
Schermelleh-Engel, K., Moosbrugger, H. & Muller, H. (2003) ‘Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures’, Methods of Psychological Research Online, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 23–74.
UNESCO Broadband Commission. (2017) Working Group on the Digitalization Scorecard: Which Policies and Regulations Can Help Advance Digitalization, Paris, Available at: http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/WG-Digitalization-Score-Card-Report2017.pdf
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., Helsper, E.J. & Eynon, R. (2014) Measuring Digital Skills. From Digital Skills to Tangible Outcomes project report. Available at: www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=112
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., Helsper, E.J. & Eynon, R. (2016) ‘Development and validation of the Internet Skills Scale (ISS)’, Information, Communication & Society, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 804–823. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1078834.
van Deursen, A.J.A.M et al., (2017) ‘The compoundness and sequentiality of digital inequality’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 11, pp. 452–473.
van Laar, E., et al., (2017) ‘The relation between 21st-century skills and digital skills or literacy: A systematic literature review’, Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 72, pp. 577–588. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.03.010.
Weinert, S., et al., (2011) ‘Development of competencies across the life span’, Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, vol. 14, pp. 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11618-011-0182-7

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors contributing to Research in Learning Technology retain the copyright of their article and at the same time agree to publish their articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, for any purpose, even commercially, under the condition that appropriate credit is given, that a link to the license is provided, and that you indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.