Digital skills of internet natives: Different forms of digital literacy in a random sample of northern Italian high school students

Abstract

This article outlines the main results and methodological challenges of a large-scale survey on actual digital skills. A test covering three main dimensions of digital literacy (theoretical, operational and evaluation skills) was administered to a random sample of 65 third-year high school classes, producing data on 980 students. Items include knowledge questions, situation-based questions and tasks to be performed online. A Rasch-type model was used to score the results. In agreement with the literature, the sample performed better in operational skills, while showing a particularly poor performance regarding evaluation skills (although for this dimension the test shows reliability issues). Through a robust regression analysis we investigate if a skills divide based on ascriptive differences, gender and family cultural background, exists among the students. It emerges that cultural background has a significant effect, which is stronger on operational skills, while gender shows a more definite impact on theoretical knowledge.