Abstract
This paper examines the digital skill level of refugee migrants in Germany while pursuing a job, a training position, or following an educational path on the Internet. For that, we conducted a lab experiment designing tasks with varying difficulty to position the digital competencies of refugee migrants on the digital skill scale. Problems with operational and formal skills were observed whereas fact-based information seeking was often successfully completed. The most complex tasks could not be completed by any participant. The study contributes to a better understanding of the varying degrees of digital skills of refugee migrants. Results can be used to design targeted courses and curricula that address digital deficits. Further training in this area will enable refugee migrants to benefit from the many opportunities that arise through the Internet and its services, improving their chances for labor market integration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
As our research affects the area of forced migration we will refer to the term “refugee migrants” [1] to make clear that we apply to this group of migrants.
- 2.
In 2015, the top 1,000 companies in Germany published 90% of their vacancies on their company website, 7 out of 10 vacancies are offered on online job portals [2].
- 3.
In the Integration courses, refugee migrants learn German language skills up to the B1-level based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. On this level, learners should be able to have conversations in various contexts and cope with everyday problems [5, p. 34].
- 4.
A survey among German companies revealed that 59% of them advertise job offers on their homepage and use Internet job portals (42%) to find appropriate candidates for their open positions [9].
- 5.
We use the term “digital skills” which refers to the use of the Internet and can be used synonymously to the term “internet skills”.
- 6.
- 7.
References
Lloyd, A.: Reflection on: “on becoming citizens: examining social inclusion from an information perspective”. Aust. Acad. Res. Libr. 47(4), 316–319 (2016)
Weitzel, T., Eckhardt, A., Laumer, S., Maier, C., von Stetten, A., Weinert, C., Wirth, J.: Recruiting Trends 2015 - Eine empirische Untersuchung mit den Top-1.000-Unternehmen aus Deutschland sowie den Top-300-Unternehmen aus den Branchen Finanzdienstleistung, Health Care und IT. [recruiting trends 2015. an empirical study of the top 1,000 companies from germany and the top 300 companies in the financial services, healthcare and IT sectors] (2015)
OECD: Adults, Computers and Problem Solving. OECD Skills Studies. OECD Publishing (2015). https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264236844-en
Brücker, H., Rother, N., Schupp, J. (eds.): IAB-BAMF-SOEP-Befragung von Geflüchteten: Überblick und erste Ergebnisse: [IAB-BAMF-SOEP-survey of refugees: overview and first results]. Number 29 in Forschungsbericht, Nürnberg (2016)
Council of Europe: The common European framework of reference for languages: learning, teaching, assessment (2001)
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., van Dijk, J.A.G.M.: Improving digital skills for the use of online public information and services. Gov. Inf. Q. 26(2), 333–340 (2009)
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., van Dijk, J.A.G.M.: Digital Skills - Unlocking the Information Society. Digital Education and Learning. Palgrave Macmillan, US (2014)
OECD: Skills for a Digital World. OECD Digital Economy Papers. OECD Publishing (2016) https://doi.org/10.1787/5jlwz83z3wnw-en
Bossler, M., Kubis, A., Moczall, A.: Neueinstellungen im Jahr 2016: Große Betriebe haben im Wettbewerb um Fachkräfte oft die Nase vorn. IAB-Kurzbericht (18) (2017)
Maitland, C., Tomaszewski, B., Belding, E., Fisher, K.E., Xu, Y., Iland, D., Schmitt, P., Majid, A.: Youth mobile phone and internet use january 2015. zaatari camp, mafraq, jordan (2015)
Fisher, K.E., Talhouk, R., Yefimova, K., Al-Shahrabi, D., Yafi, E., Ewald, S., Comber, R.: Za’atari refugee cookbook: relevance, challenges and design considerations. In: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2017, pp. 2576–2583. ACM (2017)
Alam, K., Imran, S.: The digital divide and social inclusion among refugee migrants: a case in regional Australia. Inf. Technol. People 28(2), 344–365 (2015)
Khoir, S., Du, J.T., Koronios, A.: Study of Asian immigrants’ information behaviour in South Australia: Preliminary results. In: Proceedings of the 2014 iConference, pp. 682–689 (2014)
Komito, L., Bates, J.: Migrants’ information practices and use of social media in Ireland: networks and community. In: Proceedings of the 2011 iConference, iConference 2011, pp. 289–295. ACM (2011)
Quirke, L.C.: A study of the information practices of Afghan newcomer youth in the contexts of leisure and settlement (2014)
Burrell, J., Anderson, K.: ‘I have great desires to look beyond my world’: trajectories of information and communication technology use among Ghanaians living abroad. New Media Soc. 10(2), 203–224 (2008)
Yoon, K.: Korean migrants use of the internet in Canada. J. Int. Migr. Integr. 18(2), 547–562 (2017)
Caidi, N., Allard, D., Quirke, L.: Information practices of immigrants. Ann. Rev. Inf. Sci. Technol. 44(1), 491–531 (2010)
Litt, E.: Measuring users internet skills: a review of past assessments and a look toward the future. New Media Soc. 15(4), 612–630 (2013)
Mehra, B., Bilal, D.: International students perceptions of their information seeking strategies. In: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS/Actes du congrs annuel de l’ACSI (2007)
Badke, W.: International students: information literacy or academic literacy. Acad. Exch. 6(4), 60–65 (2002)
Alzougool, B., Chang, S., Gomes, C., Berry, M.: Finding their way around: international students use of information sources. J. Adv. Manag. Sci. 1(1), 43–49 (2013)
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., Helsper, E.J., Eynon, R.: Development and validation of the internet skills scale (ISS). Inf. Commun. Soc. 19(6), 804–823 (2015)
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., van Diepen, S.: Information and strategic internet skills of secondary students: a performance test. Comput. Educ. 63, 218–226 (2012)
Eynon, R., Geniets, A.: The digital skills paradox: how do digitally excluded youth develop skills to use the internet? Learn. Media Technol. 41(3), 463–479 (2016)
Bates, M.J.: The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface. Online Rev. 13(5), 407–424 (1989)
van Deursen, A.J.A.M., van Dijk, J.A.G.M.: Using the internet: skill related problems in users online behavior. Interact. Comput. 21, 393–402 (2009)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Stiller, J., Trkulja, V. (2018). Assessing Digital Skills of Refugee Migrants During Job Orientation in Germany. In: Chowdhury, G., McLeod, J., Gillet, V., Willett, P. (eds) Transforming Digital Worlds. iConference 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10766. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_58
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78105-1_58
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78104-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78105-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)