A Practice-Based Approach to Developing First-Year Higher Education Students' Digital Literacy: A Case Study in a Developing Country

Introduction

With higher education institutions adopting technology-enhanced teaching and learning approaches, students are having to thrive in these digital learning spaces. The emergency remote teaching (ERT) mode during the COVID-19 global pandemic further called for innovative ways of not merely transferring content online but that of translating and transforming face-to-face teaching and assessment practices into online ones. Amidst these higher education tensions, first-year students, transitioning from the high school to university culture and practices, are also expected to swiftly accustom themselves to new course and discipline-specific digital literacies. This implies that these students need to acquire, not only digital skills, but digital literacy practices.

This paper contributes to the conceptualisation of digital literacy as a social practice, which is informed by the New Literacies Studies’ theoretical approach. It further explores what this perspective means for first-year higher education students from resource constrained contexts, who enrol in courses that require them to engage in discipline-specific digital literacy practices. There are currently two perspectives of digital literacy: (1) the autonomous approach that focuses on the mastering of digital skills and (2) the ideological approach, which acknowledges that skills are embedded within a practice and underscores the context-dependability of digital literacy (Brown, Czerniewicz, Huang, & Mayisela, 2016). A limitation of the autonomous model of literacy is that it assumes that technical skills automatically have effects on social practices (Street, 2001). Street argues that the autonomous model “disguises the cultural and ideological assumptions that underpin [literacy] and that can then be presented as though they are neutral and universal” (Street, 2001, p.7). On the contrary, the ideological model of literacy posits that literacy is a social practice (Street, 1984; 2001). Lankshear and Knobel (2008) describe literacy as a “family of practices – literacies – that include … socially evolved and patterned activities” (2008, p.56). According to this perspective, one’s recognition of being literate depends on the context and literacy practices of a particular community of practice.

Social practice ideology, as adopted in this article, holds that literacy is about being able to participate in social practices and thus, a student who is capable of carrying out his/her disciplinary digital literacies is considered as being digitally literate. Thus, higher education academic disciplines serve as contexts that determine the digital literacies - the discipline-specific digital literacy practices. That is, situated practices and activities perspective has implications for the course curriculum and how academics integrate digital literacies into the curriculum. This research studies students’ (from resource constrained environments) development of digital literacy when disciplinary digital literacies are integrated into the curriculum through the use of learning and assessment activities (LAAs). While previous studies have focused on student digital skills and competencies, and digital practices in well-resourced environments, there is a research gap concerning digital literacy as a social practice in resource constrained environments such as South African schools and universities. Also, there is limited research on how adults acquire digital literacies (Frawley & Dyson, 2018). This paper aims to address this gap by describing the stories of three first-year university students who are from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds – two of whom are the first in their immediate families to attend university; their transition from high school into university; and how they acquired discipline-specific digital literacy practices and developed digital learning capabilities at university.

The paper provides a description of the conceptualisation of digital literacy as a social practice, a review of literature on how disciplines influence student digital literacy practices, and an overview of the empirical study, seminal findings in the form of narratives of three first-year students, a discussion, key conclusion and recommendations.