Vietnamese English as a Foreign Language pre-service teachers' conceptions of digital literacy

Abstract

The swift advancement of technology and changes in society after the pandemic require continuous revisions to our comprehension and competence with digital literacy. Among various skills listed as the 21st century skills, digital literacy gains significant importance and is considered as a life-long skill for individuals in policies, thus grasping robust discussion over different sectors. However, the concept of digital literacy remains contested, yet reaching no consensus on what this phenomenon entails. In the education field, there has been on-going research endeavouring at the necessity of attaining digital literacy for both teachers and learners. Hence, this present study aims to gain insights in how 84 Vietnamese pre-service teachers, whose major is English as a foreign language from the Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education conceptualize digital literacy using Qualtrics survey. Informed by the digital literacy conception framework provided by List and colleagues (2020), the responses of pre-service teachers regarding the responses of pre-service teachers were analysed by qualitative deductive content analysis and classified into the four distinct conceptions of increasing sophistication as: technology focused; digital reading; goal-directed; critical use. Despite the fact that the term remains under-researched in the Vietnamese context, the finding reveals a prevailing inclination among the majority of pre-service teachers who conceptualized digital literacy as technology focused conception, orchestrating their readiness with technology and the robust engagement with digital tools as digital natives. Intriguingly, the second highest number of pre-service teachers’ responses fall into the critical use conception marking its discrepancy to the progression characteristic that List et al., (2020) originally created their framework on. Conversely, Vietnamese English as a foreign language pre-service teachers show less acknowledgment of digital literacy as goal-directed and digital reading conceptions, hinting a dearth of exposure to this facet of digital literacy among these surveyed pre-service teachers. In terms of the selections of the most important skills for digital literacy and the skills classified under four conceptions of digital literacy from the list of 24 skills outlined in List et al.,(2020) , it is important to note that most selected skills of the pre-service teachers gravitate towards acquiring knowledge more than creating or expressing knowledge.