The effectiveness of the blended learning approach on digital literacy of middle school students with different daily Internet usage patterns

This study examined changes to middle school students’ digital literacy after engagement in a blended, technology-rich, project-based learning (BTP) environment. Guided by the social constructivist epistemology and the European Union’s DigComp 2.0 framework, this study attempted to understand how students’ digital literacy changes in a BTP environment differed, with respect to participants’ levels of daily Internet access time, and daily Internet usage purposes. Thus, this study applied a cross-sectional case study approach to middle-school participants of a BTP after-school program, across the spring and fall semesters of 2017 and 2018. Eighty middle school students completed the whole program and provided valid pre- and postdigital literacy questionaries’ responses, which presented different degrees of digital literacy changes. To investigate such variation, 58 out of the 80 students further completed an Internet use questionnaire and indicated a non-significance between (1) the students’ daily Internet use (access time and usage purposes) and digital literacy changes as well as (2) the students’ daily Internet usages purposes and digital literacy changes