Digital Literacy and Higher Education during COVID-19 Lockdown: Spain, Italy, and Ecuador

TLDR

Digital literacy is essential for 21st‑century citizenship and is expected to be integrated into higher education, but the COVID‑19 lockdown forced rapid, disruptive changes to educational systems worldwide. The study compares how higher‑education institutions in Spain, Italy, and Ecuador addressed the lockdown, focusing on digital‑literacy development. A quantitative, exploratory‑correlational survey of 376 students was used to assess digital‑literacy outcomes. Results show that improving teacher digital skills, adaptable learning resources, university‑student communication, and context‑appropriate teaching methods is essential, and that without these reforms higher education fails to guarantee digital literacy.

Abstract

Digital literacy constitutes the basis for citizenship in order to be effective and efficient in the 21st Century in professional and personal lives. The set of skills and competences integrating digital literacy are expected to be guaranteed in higher education. During the lockdown globally imposed for the COVID-19 pandemic, educational systems worldwide had to face many disruptive changes. The aim of this research is to present a comparative study of three countries’ higher education institutions (Spain, Italy, and Ecuador), analyzing how they have faced the global lockdown situation, focusing on the development of digital literacy. The methodological approach followed in this study was quantitative with an exploratory-correlational scope using a questionnaire designed ad hoc and applied in a sample of 376 students. Results point the necessity of enhancing the main aspects such as the teacher’s digital skills, sources for learning that may be adapted, communication between universities and students, and teaching methodologies that should be appropriate to the current context. Conclusions may suggest rethinking higher education learning and reinforcing main issues for this transformation, mainly: communication, teaching, and digital competences. Otherwise, digital literacy is not being guaranteed, which means higher education is not accomplishing one of its main objectives.