The development and validation of the digital literacy questionnaire and the evaluation of students’ digital literacy

The rapid advancement of educational technologies in recent decades has underscored the increasing importance of digital literacy (DL) as a core competency for all students, as recognised in various educational policies and programs. Evaluating students’ DL is crucial for providing valuable insights to guide future educational initiatives. This study aims to develop a set of indicators and a validated questionnaire to assess students’ DL effectively. Based on the DL framework developed by the research team, which delineates eight key dimensions of DL (“access and understanding,” “evaluation,” “ethics and well-being,” “interaction,” “collaboration,” “creating,” “problem-solving,” and “civic engagement and responsibility”), the study distributed the questionnaire to 1,585 primary and secondary school students in Taiwan. This sample included 748 participants in the pre-test phase and 837 in the post-test phase. Through a rigorous process of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the questionnaire demonstrated robust measurement properties and validated the underlying theoretical framework. The Cronbach’s alpha scores ranged from 0.747 to 0.877, indicating high reliability. Analysis of student responses revealed a generally favourable level of DL proficiency, with the “ethics and well-being” dimension receiving the highest scores, followed by “access and understanding.” In contrast, “creating” and “civic engagement and responsibility” received the lowest ratings among the eight dimensions. These findings suggest that students primarily assume passive roles as digital “consumers,” with less emphasis on active engagement as “creators” or “innovators.” The developed questionnaire serves as a valuable instrument for evaluating students’ DL competencies, providing insights into their digital engagement tendencies.