The impact of digital skills on educational outcomes: evidence from performance tests

Abstract

Digital skills are increasingly important for labor market outcomes and social participation. Do they also matter for academic performance? This paper investigates the effects of digital literacy on educational outcomes by merging data from the Italian National Assessment in secondary schools with an original data set on performance tests of Internet skills for 10 th grade students. Our identification strategy relies on a rich set of individual, family, school and classroom control variables that are not commonly available in previous studies. The findings indicate that, overall, Internet skills have a positive impact on academic achievement. This effect is stronger for students with low academic performance or low family background. It is also stronger for students in technical or vocational schools.

Social Networking Sites and Youth Transition: The Use of Facebook and Personal Well-Being of Social Work Young Graduates

“…Nevertheless, a view from the dark side should be also evidenced. Equity and inclusion problems (Pagani et al, 2016), cyber-aggression (Mishna et al, 2018), technology addiction (Lachmann et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2018) or the negative effects of ICTs on learning and academic results (Hawi and Samaha, 2016) have been underlined as disadvantages of technology related to Youth.…”

A study of the use of digital technology and its conditions with a view to understanding what ‘adequate digital competence’ may mean in a national policy initiative

“…However, they also contend that despite their current definition, digital competence is a concept that still needs to be more clearly defined (cf. Pagani et al 2016). This is interesting, especially considering the vague description of adequate digital competence reported on in this article (see Fransson, Lindberg, and Olofsson 2018).…”

“…These themes display challenges related to (a) defining digital competence in educational policy and practice (cf. Ilomäki et al 2016;Pagani et al 2016;Pettersson 2017), (b) teachers' current level of digital competence and the time and contexts for CPD (cf. Bulfin et al 2016;Lantz-Andersson et al 2017;Krumsvik 2008Krumsvik , 2014Sipilä 2014;Willermark 2018) and (c) the degree of readiness at an organisational level for the digitalised school (cf.…”

Predicting Web 2.0 use among US teens—Expanding the power of the skill, will and tool model

“…In Chile, a high school study measured frequency of computer activities using a 4-point scale where 1 = never, 2 = monthly, 3 = weekly and 4 = every day (Hinostroza et al, 2015). Finally, a recent study of data from the Italian National Assessment found that Internet skills positively impact student achievement (Pagani, Argentin, Gui, & Stanca, 2016). Therefore, frequency of Web 2.0 use was the ultimate endogenous variable.…”