Abstract:

The European Commission started to see the importance of digital skills a few years after the turn of the millennium. Digital literacy is seen as a component, a subsystem of information literacy. Digital literacy is a technical skill; we consider the use of ICT to be 'hard skills'. Hard skills represent professional and technical knowledge and skills. They can be acquired more easily through study and practice. They represent a person's professional qualification and, in the past, have been crucial in gaining employment. Hard skills help you identify candidates who are good on paper, whereas soft skills indicate which of these candidates are good in person, too. The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies testing of adults' competence to work in technically advanced environments has shown that in Slovakia the ability of the university-educated population to complete advanced computer work lags behind the average of OECD countries. Expert studies and surveys confirm that the level of digital literacy is improving in Europe and Slovakia, and the number of people who have basic experience in using digital technologies is also increasing. However, despite these positive trends, there are still significant gaps in society, referred to as the digital divide.

Building digital skills during graduate education is key. Employers' demands for digital skills are increasingly high. It is surprising to find that only half of graduates from degree programmes with a focus on economics, management and human resources meet these digital skills requirements. Respondents perceive several barriers during the acquisition and development of digital skills. Just as the level and type of digital skills necessary for modern life and business practice vary depending on the age and individual needs of different groups, so do the types of barriers to their better digital inclusion and fit in the labour market. In the conducted research, we focused on identifying the most significant barriers to digital skills of students studying economics and management. From a detailed analysis of the theoretical background of scientific and professional sources and the conducted semi-structured interviews, we defined 10 significant barriers and the determinants influencing these barriers. Subsequently, we investigated the significance of the barriers among 762 respondents, identifying the influence of each determinant (age, gender and relationship to digital technologies) in relation to each barrier. In analyzing the data, we used a broad statistical apparatus and advanced scientific methods to identify the influence of the determinants on the barriers and to look for causality. Respondents consider the most significant barriers to be the lack of time during their studies to acquire knowledge and skills - deeper exploration of digital technologies, applying ICT tools, too much focus on other courses taught; unmotivating education system - frequent memorization without a more detailed explanation, motivation as to why this skill is important in business practice. Closely related to this barrier is the third barrier, namely students' lack of knowledge about ICT, they do not understand the application of ICT in business processes and practice. The research paper not only provides the identification of the barriers and the presentation of the impact and differences depending on the determinants, but also a discussion and ideas from practice.

Keywords:

Hard skills, digital literacy, information literacy, barriers, business practice.