Abstract:

At present, all across Europe there are insufficient research data about the degree, scope and opportunities of using the new multimedia devices at an early childhood age in the family, in the community and at school, as well as about the extent to which reading literacy affects digital literacy and vice versa. According to Richard Lanham, literacy has extended its semantic reach to meaning “the ability to understand information however presented”. It is necessary to study the new trends so that pedagogues are given adequate ground for their work with the “digital children”.

The purpose of the fundamental project “Digital Competencies and Media Education at Pre-school and Primary School Age” (DN 05/8) is to study and explore the conditions, methods, and approaches that need to be applied for the propaedeutic acquisition and formation of digital competences. To accomplish the aim, there are specific objectives. One of them is to investigate the connection between interest in reading and the level of digital literacy of students up to 11 years old. The aim this Work package that the author has been participated in is to analyze the relationship between reading literacy and the impact of digital technologies. At the first stage of the project (December 2016 to June 2019) three types of surveys are designed and conducted – surveys for students (primarily for 4th grade students), surveys for parents and surveys for teachers. Based on the preliminary studies and theoretical research were developed the instruments and were implemented as set of the surveys.

The focus in this article is a comparison between results from three surveys – for students, parents and teachers and their interpretations towards digital technology and the formation of digital literacy of students up to 11 years old. The Questionnaires are designed with four sections – „Reading“, „Digital literacy“, „Connection between reading and digital literacy's formation of students up to 11 years old” and Demographic section. The current article will focus only parts connected with digital technologies and demographic profiles of the respondents.

In 2018 there were interviewed 637 children from 13 Bulgarian towns; 144 parents and 186 teachers. It is important to analyze the respondents’ answers connected with questions about their abilities for using digital devices as content creation, communication, problem solving and safety. It is worrying that almost half of the surveyed children do not know about the dangers of the Internet and how to protect themselves. There are dramatic gaps between students’ self-assessments and their teachers’ assessments towards to digital competence – 20% difference. According to Self Assessment Grid for Digital competence (Europass) 35% of the students defined their selves as Basic users; 29% defined their selves as Independent users and the other 29% as Proficient users. Almost 1/3 of these 182 ‘Proficient users’ children don’t know about dangerous in Internet and how to block someone’s account.

The problem of digital literacy has not been studied enough in Bulgaria. Therefore, the study of comparison between parents’, teachers’ and students’ answers towards digital competence and its relation to children’s lives can contribute to acquiring sustainable knowledge that can be used in teachers’ guidebooks, educational policies and recommendations for parents and practitioners.

Keywords:

Digital literacy, comparison, surveys, parents, teachers, students.