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The influence of academic discipline, race, and gender on web-use skills among graduate-level students

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Abstract

There is a paucity of research on the digital literacy of graduate-level students. The study examined whether academic discipline, age, gender, race, parental education, international status, GPA, and self-perceived skills is associated with web-use skills among this population. Hargittai and Hsieh’s 27-item Web-use Skills Index was used to measure web-use skills. The Kruskal–Wallis H test with post hoc Fisher’s least significant difference test was used to determine statistical differences between groups of independent variables. Academic discipline, race/ethnicity, and gender had a greater number of statistically significant differences (p < .05) with 12, 15, and 20 variables respectively. Few web-skill variables were significantly different by age, GPA, international status, and parental education with 4, 3, 2, and 3 variables respectively. Gender plays a large role in the digital literacy of graduate and professional students compared to other demographic factors. This may be due to factors influenced by gender including family life, self-efficacy, and access to technology. The high web proficiency of Asian/Pacific Islander students is consistent with past research. However, African American students were more web-proficient than Caucasian students, which is inconsistent with previous research. Academic discipline may be independently associated with varying levels of web-use scores.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland, Baltimore 621 W. Lombard St. Suite 302, Office 312, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Jennifer Owens

  2. University of Maryland, Baltimore 620 W. Lexington St., Office 5121, Baltimore, MD, 21201, USA

    Flavius Lilly

Authors
  1. Jennifer Owens
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Correspondence to Jennifer Owens.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Appendix: Web-use Skills Index (instrument)

Appendix: Web-use Skills Index (instrument)

Adapted from Hargittai and Hsieh (2012). Succinct survey measures of web-useskills social science computer review. Bibliographic entry.

  1. 1.

    What is your age?

    1. a.

      Write in

  2. 2.

    What is your classification?

    1. a.

      Undergraduate student

    2. b.

      Graduate student

    3. c.

      Other (please specify)

  3. 3.

    What is your race and/or ethnicity? (select all that apply)

    1. a.

      Asian/Pacific Islander

    2. b.

      Black/African American

    3. c.

      Hispanic

    4. d.

      White/Caucasian

    5. e.

      Other (please specify)

  4. 4.

    Are you an international student?

    1. a.

      Yes

    2. b.

      No

  5. 5.

    What is the highest degree or level of school your parents have completed? If currently enrolled, highest degree received.

    1. a.

      Some high school, no diploma

    2. b.

      High school graduate/diploma or the equivalent

    3. c.

      Some college credit, no degree

    4. d.

      College degree

    5. e.

      Graduate or professional degree

  6. 6.

    What school are you in?

    1. a.

      Medicine

    2. b.

      Pharmacy

    3. c.

      Law

    4. d.

      SSW

    5. e.

      Nursing

    6. f.

      Dental

    7. g.

      Other, please specify

  7. 7.

    Is this your first semester at UMB?

    1. a.

      Yes

    2. b.

      No

      Skip logic: If a student answers “No” to question 7 they will be asked their GPA. If they answer “Yes” question 8 will be omitted. This is done because first semester students do not yet have GPAs.

  8. 8.

    What is your estimated GPA?

    1. a.

      Write in

  9. 9.

    What is your gender?

    1. a.

      Male

    2. b.

      Female

    3. c.

      Transgender

    4. d.

      Other

  10. 10.

    In terms of your Internet skills, do you consider yourself to be…

    1. a.

      Not at all skilled

    2. b.

      Not very skilled

    3. c.

      Fairly skilled

    4. d.

      Very skilled

    5. e.

      Expert

  11. 11.

    The purpose of this question is to assess your attentiveness to question wording. For this question please mark the very often response.

    1. a.

      Never

    2. b.

      Rarely

    3. c.

      Sometimes

    4. d.

      Often

    5. e.

      Very often

  12. 12.

    How familiar are you with the following internet-related items? Please choose a number between 1 and 5 where 1 represents having “no understanding” and 5 represents having “a full understanding” of the item. Please do not google to discover meaning. This is an anonymous survey and not an assessment of individual skill. [none, little, some, good, full]

    1. a.

      Advanced search

    2. b.

      Bcc (on email)

    3. c.

      Blog

    4. d.

      Bookmark

    5. e.

      Bookmarklet

    6. f.

      Cache

    7. g.

      Favorites

    8. h.

      Fitibly

    9. i.

      Firewall

    10. j.

      Frames

    11. k.

      JFW

    12. l.

      JPG

    13. m.

      Malware

    14. n.

      Newsgroup

    15. o.

      PDF

    16. p.

      Phishing

    17. q.

      Podcasting

    18. r.

      Preference setting

    19. s.

      Proxypod

    20. t.

      Reload

    21. u.

      RSS

    22. v.

      Social bookmarking

    23. w.

      Spyware

    24. x.

      Tabbed browsing

    25. y.

      Tagging

    26. z.

      Torrent

    27. aa.

      Web feeds

    28. bb.

      Weblog

    29. cc.

      Widget

    30. dd.

      Wiki

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Owens, J., Lilly, F. The influence of academic discipline, race, and gender on web-use skills among graduate-level students. J Comput High Educ 29, 286–308 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-017-9137-1

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