Ensuring the inclusion of older people through programs to maintain and promote digital skills
DigiKomS
The DigiKomS research project was successfully completed on 30.9.2023. Many thanks to all those involved, especially to the many interested and committed senior citizens who took part in our learning workshops.
Background to the DigiKomS project
Nowadays, global and technical developments place many demands on every individual in many areas of life. For example, social participation as part of quality of life increasingly requires the integration of digital media into everyday life. While this is often taken for granted by a large number of people - especially “digital natives” born after 1985 - older people still sometimes find it difficult to meet the necessary requirements. Various difficulties must be overcome in order to enable the social inclusion of older people through the use of digital media and technologies.
Objectives and contents
These difficulties and framework conditions were initially investigated in the research project. The attitudes, subjective norms and control beliefs of older people with regard to the use of digital media were first systematically determined and presented in a qualitative and a subsequent quantitative study. In particular, the theory of planned behavior by Ajzen (1991, 2011) and La Barbera and Ajtzen (2021) as well as the media literacy model by Groeben (2002) were applied here. In addition, the current behavior regarding the use of digital media as well as obstacles and their causes regarding media use were surveyed. This made it possible to determine the extent of digital exclusion, among other things. Potentials for digital inclusion and recommendations for action could be derived from these results, which formed a starting point for the promotion of digital media skills for senior citizens in the research project.
Project results
The results show, among other things, that the DigiKomS learning workshop improves attitudes towards digital media, increases media literacy and self-efficacy in dealing with media and reduces anxiety when using digital media. The DigiKomS learning workshop is therefore largely effective in terms of its objectives. Although the evaluation also revealed room for improvement and further development of the DigiKomS learning workshop would be useful, it can be concluded that The learning workshop as a pedagogical concept proves to be a suitable approach for promoting digital media skills and digital media behavior among senior citizens. Approaches for transferring the learning workshop concept to other target groups and other areas of competence were also identified.
Final conference
The final conference of our DigiKomS project with project participants, former Lernwerkstatt participants (who reported on their experiences in and with the Lernwerkstatt, among other things), scientists, people from politics and other interested guests took place on 31.08.2023 at the FHM Rostock. We presented our project and the project results there. The participants were also able to gain a practical insight into the learning workshop, the materials, possible learning tasks and the learning location, as a kind of “hands-on research”.
You can find the video recording of our final conference here:
watch video
Final publication
The project team is currently working on a book to be published by NOMOS-Verlag, which will comprehensively describe and discuss the background and questions of the project, the theoretical and conceptual basis, the development of the DigiKomS learning workshop and its evaluation. You can look forward to this publication, which will appear soon. We will inform you about it here.
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