The Singapore student digital literacies profile project

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of digitalization in almost all aspects of life around the world. However, digitalization is not just about technology but also about the digital literacies of the people. In particular, for teaching and learning, the design and delivery of online learning requires a nuanced understanding of the digital literacies profile of students. The objective of this research project is to develop an online questionnaire and produce empirical findings on the digital literacies profile of 200 secondary 3 and primary 5 students in Singapore across genders and socioeconomic backgrounds. We will also examine the digital literacies profiles of secondary 3 and primary 5 boys and girls, as well as across SES. The digital literacies profile is based on the four integrated dimensions in the Common Framework of Reference for Digital Literacies (CFRIDiL) developed by the "EU-MADE 4ll" ("European Multimodal and Digital Education for Language Learning"), a three-year European Union funded project that concluded in 2019. CFRIDiL is a comprehensive set of guidelines to systematically describe levels of proficiency for students and European citizens across Europe and other countries. All four dimensions, multimodal orchestration, digital technologies, intercultural communication, and transversals skills, are deemed critical for successful design, production, interpretation and evaluation of multimodal digital texts and online interactions, that characterise digital literacies (Sindoni, et al., 2019). It describes what a successful digital literate citizen must be able to do and understand in the transnational digital environment. This study contributes to the effort of bridging the digital divide by developing a set of questionnaires to understand the digital literacies profile of students. This will inform us on the level of proficiencies they perceive themselves to have across the four dimensions of digital literacies. The findings will provide us an understanding of the knowledge and skills that they have as well as the inadequacies they experience in aspects of digital literacies. With this snapshot, a more targeted and focused set of initiatives and efforts can be made by MOE, as well as other ministries and agencies to meet the student where they are and help them grow in areas where they report themselves to be lacking. The findings can inform the design of learning packages on digital literacies as well as the National Digital Literacy Programme. As Singapore advances in its efforts towards the Smart Nation vision, it is important to ensure digital inclusivity. To do so will require an understanding of the digital literacies profiles of students and the disparity in digital literacies across socioeconomic backgrounds. The questionnaires, based on CFRIDiL, used in the study can be easily scaled up by extending it to more students, across more age groups, in Singapore. Should the Ministry of Education find the timely information on students' digital literacies useful for their use, the questionnaires can easily be incorporated as part of the suite of measures used for the Ministry's data collection and assessment of all Singaporean students' current state of digital literacies. While the project findings will have clear utility for policymakers, educators, and parents in Singapore, the project will also have contributions to methods in international research on digital literacies, specifically in developing an instrument to assess students' digital literacies based on the CFRIDiL Framework.