Digital Literacy in Higher Education: A Survey on Students’ Self-assessment

The promotion of digital literacy is a priority for most information societies, as they become highly dependent on digital resources. As one of the core requirements of the workplace, digital literacy is increasingly being incorporated in higher education curricula. This paper aims to depict the level of digital literacy of higher education students, based on their own perceptions. The multiplicity of existing definitions for digital literacy constitutes a difficulty in its assessment. Hence, this paper begins by proposing a threefold definition of digital literacy: access to technology, operational competences and conceptual skills. This definition was deconstructed into sets of specific skills that were the subject of an online questionnaire that Portuguese higher education students were asked to complete. The analysis of the students’ self-evaluation in terms of their digital literacy, offered an important insight into their specific strengths and weaknesses when it comes to Information and Communication Technology