Captivating university students’ digital literacy competence: Learning from photovoice

Abstract

As the world rapidly shifts from in-person interactions to online ones, people are becoming more aware of the importance of digital literacy competence in the 21^st century. Numerous studies confirm that digital literacy competence accelerates students’ academic achievement and recommend incorporating digital literacy competence in academic syllabi in higher education to equip students with the competencies. This study aims to cultivate digital literacy competence, specifically information literacy, through a class intervention in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses for engineering undergraduate students. The class intervention incorporates one area of digital literacy competencies, information and data literacy, as stated in DigCom 2.0 Framework – a digital competence framework for citizens developed by the European Commission. This qualitative study executes a case study approach using photovoice (PV) to investigate students' experience and competence development in information and data literacy since (PV) can be used to portray changes and experiences while acquiring a specific competence. This study involves 20 out of 78 taking EAP classes as general courses, and data are collected through learning journals to capture students' learning experiences using photovoice. The collected data are analyzed using an emotional geography framework, which explores how people experience and express their emotions during interaction with their environment, including people and circumstances. These emotions are categorized into several areas: personal, physical, moral, professional, and political. The result shows that the class intervention has brought about a new understanding of digital literacy and the student's awareness of information and data literacy. Before the class, they considered digital literacy competence merely operating digital devices. After the class, they recognized the importance of information and data literacy and techniques to evaluate information from online sources by considering its currency, relevancy, author, accuracy, and purpose. Therefore, this study recommends incorporating digital literacy into all disciplines and further study on other core competencies in digital literacy, as suggested in DigCom 2.0.