Digital barriers and enablers for learning and professional practice

girl on a mountain looking at the sun rise

In the context of Higher Education, digital competencies are increasingly recognised as a necessary skillset that students should continuously develop to navigate an evolving digital learning and professional landscape. However, the existence of digital divides in students creates significant challenges, even at the level of baseline digital literacy.

Award

MRes | MPhil | PhD | MSc by Research

Start Date

Usually February and October - at individual School's discretion

Research Opportunities

Summary

This PhD project aims to explore students’ digital competencies in different subject areas and to further understand the digital literacy gaps and barriers they encounter for both learning and future work. This necessitates a discipline-based on-going exploration of students’ development needs and their readiness to apply digital skills within a constantly evolving education and professional environment.

Recent research exploring the development of students’ digital skills or competencies has found variability in focus and directions and a lack of a discipline-based approach to digital literacy skills development in academia, and with a focus on computer and data literacy, while a direction towards higher level digital skills, such as information literacy, digital communication, digital creation and critical thinking is often omitted. Overall, studies are inconclusive, as the methodologies and measurements followed are either generic or offer a partial exploration of digital skills. To support the development of students’ digital competence as future professionals, operating within a complex digitally enabled professional world, both a holistic and a discipline-related understanding of digital skills requirements, existing gaps and enablers is required. This research, therefore, aims to offer a comprehensive insight into students’ different needs for digital competencies development and explore their digital experiences.

The research will involve a digital competencies cross-sectional survey of students across different disciplines (with an emphasis on health, social sciences and law), focus groups with students and the development and evaluation of a student-centered co-creation approach to develop a digital competencies toolkit that could be incorporated into teaching and learning within different subject areas. The research will propose discipline-specific educational digital skills interventions that foster inclusivity, continuous improvement and professional readiness and will stresses the value of partnership with students to highlight important areas for digital skills upskilling.

Candidates applying for this PhD project should have previous experience of survey development and experience in the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Good IT skills and experience in organising knowledge and information thematically are also welcome. The post requires strong research, evaluation, synthesis and presentation skills. Overall, genuine interest in/enthusiasm for the subject and excellent administrative, analytical, communication and writing skills with attention to detail are necessary.