Hong Kong Students' Online Activity and Digital Literacy in a Rapidly Changing Ecological Context

• In Event: Examining the Impact of COVID-19 on Education Systems Around the World

Abstract

Research conducted during the pandemic found that students with higher DL performed better in online learning during the lockdowns (Limniou et al., 2021). Studies conducted before the pandemic further showed that students who were more experienced with digital devices had higher levels of DL (Fraillon et al., 2020). However, some types of online activities, such as completing technical tasks, were negatively associated with DL (ACARA, 2018). This apparent contradiction points to the need to decipher the types of online activities that promote the development of DL.

Students in Hong Kong have experienced long periods of intermittent school suspension due to the outbreak of COVID-19 (Education Bureau, 2020). The shift in the learning mode from face-to-face to fully online has greatly increased the time students spend using digital technology (Lau et al., 2021). Thus, students require DL for successful online learning. To understand associations between students’ online activity and DL before and after the outbreak of the pandemic, this longitudinal study recruited 600 secondary 3 students (grade 9) in 2019 and 827 secondary 3 students from the same school in 2021 to examine (1) the differences in students’ online activities and DL, as well as (2) the relations between students’ online activities and DL before and after the pandemic started. In both years, students completed a DL assessment and reported their demographic information and online activities via an online survey.

As displayed in Tables 1 and 2, students in the 2021 cohort spent more time discussing with teachers about learning, browsing social networking sites, and making charts, graphs or forms at home than the 2019 cohort. The time students of the 2021 cohort spent on learning activities at school was generally less than that of the 2019 cohort. Students in 2021 performed better in the DL assessment than students in 2019.

Three factors were extracted: leisure activities at home, learning activities at home, and learning activities at school. As displayed in Figures 1 and 2, structural equation modeling showed that in both years, students who spent more time on leisure activities at home performed better in the DL assessment. In 2021, those who spent more time on learning activities at school had worse DL performance.

The better DL performance observed among the 2021 cohort may be due to the increased use of digital technologies caused by the pandemic. It is also possible that younger cohorts of students have more opportunities to access the latest digital technologies and thus acquire more DL than their peers two years ago (Bennett et al., 2008). Extending previous findings that more experience with digital devices is associated with higher levels of DL (Fraillon et al., 2020), our study identified the specific relationships between three types of online activities and DL. The negative association between learning activities at school and DL in 2021 implies that the digital learning activities assigned to students in school in 2021 were not conducive to DL development and highlights the need for reform of online teaching and learning activities.

Authors

• Sisi Tao, University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Frank Reichert, University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Nancy W.Y. Law, University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author