Digital literacy - a qualitative systematic review

Abstract

Based on searches in Academic Search Premier, ERIC, SCOPUS and ORIA the paper reviews a total of 55 papers, this paper presents a review of how digital literacy is defined, interpreted and used in the research literature in the context of primary/elementary education. The paper identifies that digital literacy both are interpreted as the skills, knowledge and reflective practical abilities needed to be digitally literate, and as an emergent empirical phenomenon that needs to studied exploratively. Further, we identify that digital literacy is studied within various theoretical perspectives which imply many different interpretations of how it should be studied and that studies often lack a definition of what is meant by digital literacy. Conclusively, it is argued that there are important potentials in maintaining the broadness of how digital literacy can be defined, used and interpreted, but what rigorous explanations of how it is used in the given study is required for the broadness of the concept to be an asset.