Students at a middle school in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, attend in-person classes on June 7, 2021. The provincial education office resumed face-to-face learning at all regional elementary, middle and high schools the same day. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — As the government has decided to nurture digital talent, there is inequality in digital literacy depending on a family’s economic situation among middle and high school students, a survey showed Monday.
The Seoul Education Research & Information Institute conducted a survey of 13,141 middle and high school students in Seoul, which revealed that respondents from ‘well-off’ families scored the highest at 3.26 points in digital literacy, followed by those from ‘middle-class’ families (3.11 points) and ‘poor’ families (3.07 points).
The respondents were divided into three groups depending on their perception towards their family’s financial situation.
The average scores among all respondents were 3.28 points for media use, 3.22 points for critical thinking towards media content, 3.08 points for online collaboration and 2.97 points for creative application.
Respondents from financially better-off families tended to score better in all of these categories.
Similar differences were observed in the responses to most questions in different categories.
When asked if using electronic materials or videos in class helps with their studies, 24.6 percent said it helps ‘greatly’, while 56.4 percent said it helps ‘quite a lot’.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
