=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2755/paper12
|storemode=property
|title=Digital Literacy in Lower Secondary Education - A First Evaluation of the Situation in Austria
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2755/paper12.pdf
|volume=Vol-2755
|authors=Corinna Hörmann,Barbara Sabitzer
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/issep/HormannS20
}}
==Digital Literacy in Lower Secondary Education - A First Evaluation of the Situation in Austria==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2755/paper12.pdf
Digital Literacy in Lower Secondary Education –
A First Evaluation of the Situation in Austria
Corinna Hörmann1[0000−0002−4770−6217] and Barbara
Sabitzer2[0000−0002−1304−6863]
1
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
corinna.hoermann@jku.at
2
Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
barbara.sabitzer@jku.at
Abstract. As long ago as 1988, Austria introduced the subject “Com-
puter Science” in grade 9. Quite a long time there was solely this one year
of mandatory IT-education during school career. In 2011, all European
countries had digital education policies in place, either as standalone poli-
cies or as part of a national ICT strategy. The strategic weight of these
policies remained on nurturing students’ digital competences, justified by
future economic benefits. For Austria, these changes have not resulted in
further computer science education in school. When Austria implemented
the new mandatory subject “Digital Education” in September 2018 for
all students in lower secondary education, computer science education fi-
nally found its way into additional grades. The curriculum covers digital
competences, media competences, as well as civic education. Schools can
decide if they offer stand-alone subjects or if they implement the cur-
riculum in an integrative way in several other subjects. However, schools
still fight the problem who is teaching and how, because most schools
just cannot install an extra subject, due to lack of teachers or lack of
teaching hours available. This paper reports on the implementation of
the subject “Digital Education” in Upper Austrian schools and takes a
closer look at first experiences by evaluating a survey answered by 117
teachers approximately two years after the implementation of the new
subject.
Keywords: STEM · Digital Literacy · Digital Education · Computa-
tional Thinking
1 Introduction
Computational thinking tools and methods found their way into multiple scien-
tific fields, becoming widespread among scientists long ago [14]. Computational
thinking covers solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human
behavior by drawing on the concepts of computer science [16]. Furthermore, com-
putational thinking can be understood as the connective tissue that combines
computer science with many other disciplines [13]. However, there is still a lack
of those concepts in educational context in Austria, even if the implementation
Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons
License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
2 Corinna Hörmann and Barbara Sabitzer
of computational thinking in schools is nothing new. In the 1960s, the American
computer scientist and university professor Alan Perlis insisted on the introduc-
tion of “theory of computation” for all college students in the USA [9]. As long
ago as 1988, Austria introduced the subject “Computer Science” in grade 9.
The curriculum includes the topics “Computer Science, People, and Society”,
“IT Systems”, “Applied Computer Science”, “Computer Science in Practice”.
So, in this curriculum there is no digital literacy ar all.
Concerning the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS)
30% of the tested German students are “functional digital analphabets”, hence-
forth they only show rudimentary skills in working with new technologies and
digital devices (as Austria did not participate in the study, Germany was chosen
because both countries start their computer science education by age 10) [17].
Consequently, educators have the responsibility to make computational thinking
available to school students as well [9]. Furthermore, research shows that it is
better to implement computational thinking in other subjects than to teach it as
a stand-alone subject because it tends to be separated from real-world problems
[15].
This paper describes related work as well as the implementation of the cur-
riculum “Digital Education” in Austria. In section 4 the methodology and results
of a study, conducted in secondary schools in Upper Austria, are characterized.
2 Related Work
Regarding a nationwide promotion of media literacy, both the EU and UNESCO
act as driving institutions. Consequently, individual nations try to integrate those
recommendations into their own educational reforms and curricula. European
Union nations share lots of common characteristics in their implementation of
digital literacy in educational context [2]. This can also be observed in computer
science education world-wide. Australia, USA, and Great Britain introduced an
early education in computer science, whereas both Germany and Austria can be
found at the back of the field (see figure 1) [8].
Regarding a study from 2010 from the university in Dresden, 12 out of 16
states of Germany integrated media literacy or basic concepts of computer sci-
ence in their curricula. But otherwise there is no nationwide directive for teaching
computer science or digital education.
In Switzerland a project called “Lehrplan 21” has been developed to intro-
duce the topic “Media and Computer Science” throughout the school career. The
project focuses on “Understanding Media & Responsible Usage”, “Basic Com-
puter Science Concepts and problem Solving”, as well as “Applied Computer
Science”.
Shortly after providing each and every student at age 11 and 12 with BBC
micro:bit, England introduced a mandatory subject “Information and Commu-
nication Technology” in 2014. Educational and teaching objectives concentrate
on “Computer Science”, “Digital Literacy”, and “Information Technology”.
Digital Literacy in Schools 3
Fig. 1. Comparison of the starting age of computer science education between countries
[8] (adapted by the authors) – AT: Austria; AU: Australia; CH: Switzerland; GER:
Germany; GB: Great Britain; PL: Poland; SK: Slovakia; USA: United States of America
Slovakia installed the subject “Informatika” for all students from grade two
to eleven by focusing on computational thinking. Poland integrated the topics
“Understanding and Analysis of Problems” and “Programming and Problem
Solving by Using Computers and other Digital Devices” in their curriculum.
As part of Barack Obama’s “Computer Science for All” initiative in 2016,
the USA enhanced computer science education from kindergarten until grade
12.
There has not been deeper research in the Austrian curriculum of “Digi-
tal Education” due to the fact that it was installed in 2018. Furthermore, the
COVID-19 pandemic took other topics to the center of the stage, even if the
home-schooling situation forced students and teachers to deal with digital de-
vices.
Furthermore, there are no long time studies concerning digital literacy skills
of students in Austria but Lazonder et al. [12] report on a three-year study that
investigated the development of children’s digital literacy skills in the Nether-
lands. One hundred fifty-one students have been tested three times in yearly
intervals to gather information on how they collect, create, transform, and safely
use digital information. The study suggested that there is a linear increase in all
skills, but nonetheless natural development of digital literacy skills is slow. Fur-
thermore, they found out that the investigated students gained the most in the
competence “collecting information on the Internet”, whereas the expertise in
creating digital products from scratch improves the least. However, the growth
of most skills seemed unrelated to socio-demographic characteristics [12].
Concerning teacher training at university level, a study of the Austrian Com-
puter Society (OCG – Österreichische Computer Gesellschaft) shows that the
suggested 8 to 12 ECTS of digital competences cannot be reached at Austrian
4 Corinna Hörmann and Barbara Sabitzer
universities – they could merely be counted with 4.7 and are characterised by
the usage of software applications [2]. Nonetheless, each teacher has to imple-
ment the “Digital Literacy” curriculum in Austria, even if there are few available
teacher training courses or university support. Still, Bratengeyer et al. show that
e-learning can be found at each Austrian university, though intensity and offers
vary. Especially smaller institutions lack the necessary infrastructure as well as
technical support [3].
3 Digital Education in Austria
In the last two decades the idea of life-long learning gained more and more impor-
tance. According to the EU key competences, “Digital Literacy” is one of those
topics students should master when they finish school. In 2006 “digi.komp”, a
model for digital competences, was introduced in Austria. Digi.komp4 describes
the model until grade 4, digi.komp8 states examples from grade 4 until grade 8,
digi.komp12 suggests competences for grades 9 - 12, and digi.kompP character-
izes the model for teachers [5].
In 2018 the Austrian government published a “master-plan for digitalization”
where three main fields of action are described. Field one concerns curricula and
their development, whereby digital content has to be integrated. Furthermore,
infrastructure of schools has to be improved, as for example 24% of the pri-
mary schools have no WiFi installed in their building. Topic three covers teacher
training and teacher education, concentrating on ideas for the implementation
of digital literacy [6].
This master-plan also presented an 8-point-concept to foster digital education
that is outlined as the following [6]:
1. “Portal Digital School”: should be a single point of entry and should unify
all necessary pedagogical and administrative applications.
2. Standardization of learning platforms
3. Teacher training concerning distance- and blended learning
4. Expansion of the platform “eduthek”: this learning platform provides addi-
tional exercises and has been further developed since the COVID-19 pan-
demic.
5. Development of verified learning-apps
6. Upgrading IT infrastructure
7. Supplying students with digital devices
8. Supplying teachers with digital devices
Concerning this 8-point-plan, the Austrian government invested 200 million
Euros until 2022, to guarantee a consistent development [6].
The new subject “Digital Education” was installed in September 2018 in
lower secondary education (grades 5-8), implemented by two to four weekly
lessons. If schools want to implement more than 4 hours per week, they have the
finance it from the school budget – ministry will not pay for it. School admin-
istration can decide if they offer stand-alone subjects or if they implement the
Digital Literacy in Schools 5
curriculum in an integrative way in several other subjects. The Austrian gov-
ernment recommends the following implementation when “Digital Education” is
taught as a stand-alone subject (see figure 2).
Fig. 2. Implementation of the Curriculum of “Digital Education” [4] (adapted by the
authors)
Of course it is also possible to introduce other concepts. For example it is
possible to start with 1 hour per week stand-alone in grade 5, then switch to
1 hour per week integrated in other subjects in years six to eight. Of course,
schools can also decide to install “Digital Education” in other subjects in year
5 using 1 hour per week and grades six and seven each with 0.5 hours per week
stand-alone. Many other options are possible and common [4].
“Digital Education” covers digital competences, media competences, as well
as civic education (see figure 3). According to the curriculum, those three topics
should not be taught separately but must be connected to other subject-specific
fields. The BGBL (Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich — federal law
gazette of Austria) states that the main aim is to develop students who deal
with media and technology to be more responsible and well-briefed [1]. The
subject-specific topics are described as the following [1]:
1. Social aspects of digitalization: reflecting the usage of digital devices in ev-
eryday life as well as benefits and ethical boundaries
2. Information, data, & media: queries, evaluating sources, sharing information
3. Operating systems & standard software: basic knowledge of operating sys-
tems, text processing, presentation software, calculations
4. Media design: adopting, producing, and adapting media
5. Communication & social media: different communication platforms, creating
digital identities, cloud-sharing
6. Data security & privacy: securing devices as well as private data
7. Technical problem solving: solving basic IT problems
8. Computational thinking: working with algorithms, creative usage of pro-
gramming languages
6 Corinna Hörmann and Barbara Sabitzer
Fig. 3. Overview of the Curriculum of “Digital Education” combining different topics
[10] (adapted by the authors)
4 Study
4.1 Methodology
The study concentrated on the implementation of the new curriculum “Digi-
tal Education” that was introduced in September 2018. The following research
question lay out the basis for the survey: How do schools implement the new
curriculum? Stand-alone or integrated in other subjects?
The survey was sent to all 133 local public schools whereas 117 teachers were
willing to complete the questionnaire. Basic questions formed the first part of the
survey concerning gender, age group, years in service, school type and subjects
taught. The next section focused on the implementation of “Digital Education”
at schools where we concentrated on the following questions:
– How is “Digital Education” implemented at your school? (stand-alone sub-
ject/integrative in regular lessons/both)
– If “Digital Education” is implemented as a stand-alone subject: who teaches
this subject? (computer science teachers/interested teachers/other)
– If “Digital Education” is implemented integrative in regular lessons: who
is implementing the curriculum? (everyone has to implement the curricu-
lum/only those who are interested implement the curriculum/other)
– If “Digital Education” is implemented integrative in regular lessons: How is
it checked whether material from the curriculum has been taught? (comment
in class register/with a list in the class/not at all/other)
– Is there any revision (test, quiz, . . . ) of the students knowledge of the topics
of “Digital Education”? (yes/no/other)
Digital Literacy in Schools 7
– If so, in which form? (open question)
The third section was dedicated to the personal experiences of the teachers
and wanted to find out if teachers have already been confronted with the new
curriculum. Furthermore, an opportunity was provided to add personal opinion:
– Have you already given a lesson on the “Digital Education” curriculum?
(yes/no/other)
– If yes: which content was covered? (open question)
– If so, did you have any difficulties implementing the content? (yes/no/other)
– Which sources do you use to create “Digital Education” lessons? (digi-
comp.at/saferinternet.at/easy4me.info/eeducation.at/book “Digitale Grund-
bildung für digi.komp8”/other)
– How useful do you consider the subject “Digital Education” on a scale from
1 (very useful) to 5 (not useful at all)?
– Further comments on the introduction of “Digital Education” (open ques-
tion)
The question using a scale-rating was implemented applying a five-point Lik-
ert scale with the options “very useful, rather useful, partly useful, rather not
useful, not useful at all” [11]. In this paper we concentrate on evaluating the
quantitative data of the survey, whereas the qualitative data are analyzed in
following papers.
4.2 Results
In total there were 117 answered questionnaires while 73 defined themselves as
female, 43 as male, and 1 as diverse. Thirteen people were under 30 years old,
16 between 30 and 39 years, 12 between 40 and 49 years, 58 between 50 and
59, and 18 over 60 years old. Reflecting their years in school service 19 teachers
stated under 5 years, 10 teachers 5-10 years, 11 teachers 11-20 years, 21 teachers
21-30 years, and 56 teachers 30 or more years in service.
The subjects taught are displayed in figure 4. Fifty-four stated they teach
mathematics, 42 teach foreign languages (English, Italian, Spanish, French, Latin,
Greek, or Russian), 36 computer science, 24 biology, 22 German, 21 physics, 21
physical education (PE), 17 history, 16 geography, 15 arts, 10 chemistry, 10 mu-
sic, 7 religious education, 5 home economics, and 3 teach career guidance. Four-
teen named other subjects like ethics, handicraft, natural sciences, accounting,
nutrition, CAD, or else. Of course, it was also possible to choose more than one
subject, as in Austria most of the teachers cover two fields of expertise. In total
117 teachers picked 317 subjects, so on average one teacher covers approximately
2.7 subjects.
The next section of the questionnaire concentrated on the realization of the
curriculum. The first question explored how “Digital Education” is implemented
at school with 4 different options, whereas it was only possible to pick one
exclusively. 30 teachers (26%) said that a stand-alone subject was introduced,
8 Corinna Hörmann and Barbara Sabitzer
Fig. 4. Different subjects taught (n = 117)
25 (21%) stated they integrate the curriculum in other subjects, 53 (45%) choose
“mixed”, and 9 (8%) picked “other”(see figure 5).
51% stated that if the curriculum is implemented as a stand-alone subject,
it is taught by computer science teachers, whereas 37% said it is taught by
interested ones, and 11% stated both. Nine teachers (8%) described different
approaches and therefore picked the category “other”. One possible alternative
was stated as doing workshops or blocked courses, whereas one teacher stated
that he/she does not even know if “Digital Education” is taught at school.
When integrated in other subjects, 59% specified that each teacher has to
implement the new curriculum, while 41% said that only interested teachers
do that. To verify whether the curriculum has been taught in an integrative
way, 40 people stated that they use comments in the class register, 18 said
that they work with checklists of the topics of the curriculum or the like in
the classroom, and 30 claimed that there is no verification at all. Three teachers
picked “other”, while they added the answers “competence catalogue”, “checklist
in teachers office”, and “teacher conferences”. When looking at assessment, 47
teachers (40%) reported that there is some kind of verification of the topics of the
curriculum of “Digital Education”, and 70 (60%) claimed that there is no test
at all. 42% out of these 47 teachers who said that there is a verification, stated
that they use tests, quizzes, or the like. The governmental tool “digicheck” [7]
was chosen by 15%, 23% reported they use the ECDL (“European Certificate of
Digital Literacy’)’, 8% picked the option “mixed”, and 12% named other forms
of assessment.
The following part concentrated on personal experience of teachers with the
implementation of “Digital Education”. Concerning the question if teachers have
already held a lesson implementing the curriculum, 66 people (56%) answered
“yes”, 46 (39%) “no”, and 5 (4%) picked “other”. Only 11% claimed that they
Digital Literacy in Schools 9
Fig. 5. Implementation of “Digital Education” at school (n = 117)
had problems teaching the new content, whereas 80% experienced no complica-
tions at all (8% chose “other”). Regarding educational resources, the question-
naire listed the most popular ones known of the field in Austria. 25% use the
website “digicomp.at”, 24% “saferinternet.at”, 19% “easy4me.info”, 17% “eed-
ucation.at”, 12% the book “Digitale Grundbildung”, and 4% other sources.
The last question wanted to find out how teachers would assess the new
subject concerning usefulness and was implemented using a five-point Likert-
Scale. Seventy-one teachers (61%) rated the subject “very useful”, 31 (26%)
“rather useful”, 11 (9%) “partly useful”, 2 (2%) “rather not useful”, and 2 (2%)
“not useful at all” (see figure 6). The rating is in the upper section with an
arithmetic mean of approximately 1.57.
4.3 Discussion
Remarkably, the age group of 50-59 years appears most often in this survey
(49%). This mirrors the current situation in Austria, as the majority of teachers
are close to retirement (64% of the participants are 50 years or older). Henceforth,
approximately half of the teachers stated that they have 30 or more years in
service.
An interesting fact is that most often computer science teachers are deployed
if “Digital Education” is taught as a stand-alone subject. That could be due to
the fact that the new curriculum has a close connection to the computer science
curriculum in Austria. Still, it would also be possible that teachers with other
subjects get involved.
If taught in an integrative way in other subjects, 59% claimed that each
teacher has to implement the new curriculum, while 41% said that only interested
10 Corinna Hörmann and Barbara Sabitzer
Fig. 6. Rating of usefulness applying a five-point Likert-scale (n = 117)
teachers do so. This is a very interesting finding because legally every teacher
has to implement the new curriculum. Still, approximately half of the teachers
do not know or at least do not consider that fact.
Another interesting discovery is shown in the answers of the question “Did
you have any difficulties implementing the content?”. 80% of the respondents
claimed that they had no problems at all. This is the exact opposite of the
tenor in teacher society because most teachers state that they do not know how
to implement the curriculum and need further materials. However, when the
survey was conducted only 56% already held a lesson in “Digital Education”.
Maybe those were the ones that had no difficulties from the start and the rest
still deals with lack of teaching materials and sparse knowledge in the field.
5 Conclusion and Outlook
This paper focused on the implementation of the subject “Digital Education”
that was introduced in 2018 in Austria. A study was conducted to investigate how
schools cope with the launch of the new curriculum. Summarizing, the research
question could be answered. It was investigated how schools implement the new
curriculum – stand-alone or integrated in other subjects. 26% claimed that they
introduced a stand-alone subject, 21% said they integrate the curriculum in
other subjects, 45% picked “mixed”, and 9 (8%) chose “other”.
In summary, further development-steps are:
– analyzing the qualitative data of the study
– expanding the study nationwide to get broader insight
Digital Literacy in Schools 11
– development of an online teacher training course to support and encourage
teachers to install “Digital Education” in their daily lessons at school by
concentrating on integrative implementation with computational thinking
– evaluating the implemented teacher training course
Henceforth, there is still a lot of effort that has to be put into the implemen-
tation of the curriculum to gain further motivation of the teachers. Especially,
due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be interesting to find out if the rating
of usefulness of the subject “Digital Education” increased.
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