Research Project
 

I have chosen to focus on Digital Literacy Skills among higher education students.  My investigation centers on how students view their own digital literacy skills using self-assessing survey.  I will be surveying students at two community colleges and one four-year university which will provide some insight on the rural vs urban digital divide as well.  Students will be asked to provide basic demographics and then asked to respond to a 10-question survey on their perceived level on different digital literacy skills.

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Initially, I chose to do 3 individual surveys, one for each institution I had planned to survey.  However, I was advised to use one survey and allow the students to choose which school they were currently attending as part of the survey. This made the distribution and collection of data more manageable over time.  Consent was built into the survey and if they answered "no" to the consent question, the survey would then end and express appreciation for their time. 

 

One of the issues that arose during the IRB approval process was age.  Many of our students are minors taking dual credit classes and come from various high schools in the surrounding area.  To expedite the approval process, I decided to prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from completing the survey.  As part of the consent process the student had to agree to be at least 18 years of age or older.

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Once the project was approved, I sent out the survey link to my students at both Houston Community College and Lonestar College, which are all online courses.  In addition to this, I had reached out to a previous professor, Dr. Douglas Constance, at Sam Houston State University (SHSU), located in Huntsville, TX and asked if he would be willing to assist me in gathering data.  He agreed to send out the link to the 5 Social Inequalities classes he was currently teaching, which are all face-to-face classes.  All links were sent out the week after classes resumed after Spring Break. 

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Currently, the responses have plateaued at 186 responses with the largest response group coming from SHSU, but the majority coming from the two community colleges.  Based on the number of students who could have completed the survey (267) and the number of responses received (186), there is a 70% response rate.  The survey has been open for about 3.5 weeks and as of April 2024, I have decided to close the survey and begin analyzing the responses and look forward to discovering any correlations between the demographic variables and perceptions of digital literacy skills. 

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Example Survey Link - https://hccs.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9H3BMA8V15uy3KS

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PDF Format of Survey Results