Keywords

7.1 Introduction

The formative impact of education in both society and economic development is widely accepted and is well supported by empirical evidence (Baker, 2020). Studies have found that education levels contribute positively to economic growth, productivity, income, innovation, health, among other socio-economic indicators (Jorgenson & Fraumeni, 1993; Feinstein et al., 2006; Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010). Depending on your sociological perspective, education follows society or vice versa (Baker, 2011). The reality is that probably both are true. As well as conveying and reinforcing societal norms, education provides citizens with the skills and knowledge to participate in society. In so doing, the human capital attributes of the labour force are enhanced. Furthermore, consistent with new growth theories, there is increasing evidence that expanding the cognitive capacity of individuals can usher in societal change, such as transforming both the nature of jobs and the nature of work (Baker, 2011). That said, there has been a longstanding tension between technology and education. New technologies change societal norms and increase demand for new skills and knowledge, thus driving demands on the education system. This is particularly the case with information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The transformative potential of ICTs on education has long been heralded. Each successive generation of ICTs has resulted in renewed enthusiasm for how digital technologies and related affordances will change the nature of teaching and learning, not least the emergence of the Internet and Web 2.0 (Wagner, 2018). This is particularly poignant against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital education is a complex multidimensional topic that includes not only elementary, secondary, and tertiary education, but also the delivery of education both through and on digital technologies to all ages and competences within communities, from early learners to older adults. This chapter outlines the rationales, benefits and challenges associated with digital technologies in education, and discusses how digital education might be measured in the context of rural towns.

7.2 What Is Digital Education?

Humans are continuously learning throughout their lives via three learning systems—formal, non-formal and informal education. Formal education is hierarchically structured and typically chronologically graded from early childhood education and care, primary and secondary education, post-secondary non-tertiary education, through to tertiary education (Coombs & Ahmed, 1974). Non-formal education is any organised educational activity outside the established formal system designed to serve identifiable learner audiences and objectives (Coombs & Ahmed, 1974). Finally, informal education includes all the other sources of learning that individuals experience in their daily lives and from their environment including family and friends (Coombs & Ahmed, 1974). As such, informal education is typically individually motivated, idiosyncratic, unorganised and often unsystematic.

In the context of this book, digital education refers to the use and sophistication of digital technologies for teaching and learning in formal and non-formal education within a community, and the infrastructure required to support such provision. As such, we are primarily concerned with social institutions rather than individuals. As per Chap. 1, digital technologies in education can be characterised as mainstream or frontier technologies, and can be general purpose or education-specific in form. They can enter the formal and non-formal education system at different levels, as per Table 7.1 (Nusche & Minea-Pic., 2020).

Table 7.1 Digital technology entry points in to education systems (adapted from Nusche and Minea-Pic. 2020)
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By and large, access to digital technologies in education focuses on mainstream technologies. With the exception of higher education research, other education and training markets typically lag behind commercial adoption of frontier technologies. This can be explained by a number of factors, such as risk averseness, lack of resources, and competence requirements. This is not to say that such emerging technologies are not being developed for—or being used in—education and training. In addition to learning about these technologies, with the exception of nano technologies and gene editing, education applications for frontier technologies abound. Table 7.2 below provides examples of such digital applications in education, disaggregated by frontier technology. Furthermore, in addition to purpose-built educational technology products, many of these technologies are incorporated into general purpose technologies (Southgate et al., 2019; Southgate, 2020).

Table 7.2 Selected frontier technologies and illustrative applications in education (adapted and extended from UNCTAD, 2021)
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7.3 Digital Technologies in Education: Rationales, Benefits, and Challenges

Increased use of digital technologies is a cornerstone of national and international education policy (Office of Educational Technology, 2017; Spires, 2018; European Union, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in greater investment in and commitment to these strategies (European Union, 2020). A wide range of rationales and potential benefits emanating from digital technologies are cited in policy and scholarly works, largely reflecting those presented in Chap. 1 and summarised in Table 7.3.

Table 7.3 Rationales for adopting digital technologies in education
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Despite the general enthusiasm regarding the potential benefits of digital technologies in education, there are significant challenges to digital adoption and usage in education. One can categorise these challenges in terms of (1) access, (2) motivation, skills and competences, and (3) evidence of outcomes.

Access is a multi-layered challenge which includes both access to digital education providers and access to digital technologies. Firstly, due to lower population densities, rural and remote geographic areas are less likely to have access to the same number or range of digital education providers as those in urban areas. It is reasonable to say that few small towns and rural areas have a tertiary education presence or can sustain a significant digital skills training business. Due to COVID-19, a significant proportion of the student population has been unable to attend school or university. On the one hand, this levelled the playing field between rural and urban students. On the other hand, it highlighted the challenges of rolling out online education at scale when digital inequalities exist in many home settings. Secondly, while there has certainly been an increase in access to digital technologies in formal education , neither access nor adequacy is uniform internationally (OECD, 2020). Even if learners or educators can access digital technologies at their institution, they may not have such access or an internet connection at home, particularly if socio-economically disadvantaged or from rural areas (OECD, 2020). It is also worth noting that broadband quality, and technology intensity and sophistication typically decrease as one moves downward from tertiary education to early childhood education and care.

Undoubtedly, there is evidence of greater integration of basic and advanced digital skills in curricula across all parts of formal and non-formal education . With creativity and critical thinking, digital literacy forms a significant part of the wider twenty-first century skills movement (World Economic Forum, 2015; Global Partnership for Education, 2020). Recent research suggests that digital literacy is also an increasing part of the wider curriculum in primary, secondary and tertiary levels (OECD, 2020). However, research also suggests that even in the most developed economies, digital inequalities remain. For example, in addition to literacy and numeracy, the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) evaluates the ICT skills of adults aged 16–65 and specifically their problem solving skills in technology-rich environments. Every participating country and economy in the most recent PIAAC survey (year) reported a substantial proportion of adults who were unable to display any proficiency in problem solving in technology-rich environments (Kankaraš et al., 2016). Furthermore, around one in ten adults (11.7%) reported having no prior computer experience and a further 4.7% of adults did not possess the basic ICT skills that are assessed by the ICT core test, such as the capacity to use a mouse or scroll through a web page (OECD, 2019a). Similarly, Eurostat’s Digital Economy and Society statistics suggest that 10% of the EU-27’s population in 2019 had never used the internet (Eurostat, 2020). Skill levels are a significant factor in the use of digital technologies for learning, not only for adults but also for younger students. Van Deursen and van Dijk (2014) note that low-skilled students, even where the internet is available, are more likely to use the internet for recreational rather than instructional activities. While digital technologies present numerous benefits, not least the flexibility of time- and location-agnostic learning, it potentially excludes parts of the population, young and old, with limited or no access to technologies or with low or non-existent ICT skills. These cohorts often rank among the most vulnerable in society and the most susceptible to social exclusion as well as digital exclusion.

The digital skills, competences and practices of educators are equally, if not more, important than those of learners. Prior to COVID-19, the OECD’s Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) of lower secondary education indicated that only 53% of teachers had students use ICT for projects or class work and only 56% of teachers across the OECD participated in training in the use of ICT for teaching as part of their initial education or training (Schleicher, 2020). Indeed, after special needs, the use of ICT for teaching was the second highest priority for professional development among teachers (Schleicher, 2020). For vocational teachers, ICT skills were identified as the greatest need for professional development in TALIS 2018 (OECD, 2019b). Again, digital divides persist. For example, findings from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study suggests that school capacity to enhance teaching and learning using digital devices is greater in socio-economically advantaged schools than disadvantaged schools (OECD, 2020). While EU data suggests that educators have improved their skills over the period of COVID-19 (European Union, 2020), the time commitment required to keep pace with both technological and pedagogical innovations is significant.

As well as learners and educators, the institutional environment in which learning takes place can pose significant challenges to the successful adoption and use of digital technologies. A number of studies have found that successful adoption of digital technologies in education requires strong leadership, an emphasis on the connection between pedagogical aims and digital technologies, school-wide adoption of the digital technologies, a focus on the process, and collaboration with external partners (Voogt et al., 2011). This presents a significant financial, cultural, and logistical challenge. Research suggests that educator attitudes, perceptions, and confidence in ICT capabilities are critical factors influencing the adoption and use of digital technologies (Fu, 2013). As such, institutions must provide the guidelines, time, space and resources for educators to learn basic and advanced digital technological skills as well as how best to use these technologies in pedagogical settings and embed them in the curriculum (Voogt et al., 2011). These resources may include the recruitment of specialist staff to provide technical and pedagogical support both within the educational institution and externally, if remote learning is anticipated (Somekh, 2008; Strudler & Hearrington, 2008). Furthermore, requisite resources may also include the provision of institution-wide learning and administrative software platforms, including data management.

Finally, and most importantly from an education perspective, evidence of a positive relationship between access to and use of digital technologies in education and learning outcomes remains inconclusive or weak at best (World Bank, 2008; Hinostroza, 2018; OECD, 2020). For example, in a recent study in a rural context, Hampton et al. (2021) found that broadband access fills the “homework gap” but has little relationship to academic achievement. Regarding digital literacy, the results are similarly mixed. Again in a rural context, Hampton et al. (2021) found that social media skills are related to higher performance on standardised exams but that internet access, use, and skills have limited influence on educational aspirations. In an Italian study, Argentin et al. (2014) found that at a descriptive level, there would seem to be a strong positive relationship between digital skills and academic achievement, however a deeper analysis suggests that other factors drive this achievement. Indeed they suggest that an individual’s digital skills do little to drive educational performance, possibly due to the nature of the current school system. Similarly, while investment in so-called STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has increased significantly, especially to encourage more female participation, outcomes are mixed. For example, while a greater proportion of those employed in the EU ICT sector have tertiary qualifications, the percentage of women employed in the EU with an ICT education has declined from 20.2% in 2009 to 17.3% in 2019. This enthusiasm for digital technologies in education has been referred to by some as the “educational productivity paradox” or the “student productivity paradox” (Pedró, 2018). As a term, it highlights the fact that mere access to and use of digital technologies in the absence of adequate enabling resources and appropriate underlying educational methodologies, are unlikely to result in significant improvements to learning outcomes (Strudler & Hearrington, 2008; Pedró, 2018). An alternative view is that the right things are not being measured (Wagner, 2018; Voogt et al., 2011; Pelgrum, 2009).

7.4 Measuring Digital Education

International data on digital education is not collected consistently for each of the levels identified—access, digital skills, competence and use, and outcomes. Indeed, common challenges in measuring digital education include (1) “fuzzy boundaries” between (a) technologies, education levels, and domains, and (b) gradations in access, usage, competences and skills, (2) self-reporting of data, (3) frequency of data collection and reporting, and (4) maintaining pace with technological change. As is evident in this chapter, research focuses significantly on secondary level education without addressing the dearth of data on early childhood education, primary education, as well as other non-formal and informal education and training provision. Even when such data is collected, in common with other aspects of digital research in society, this data is collected at a national level from which information on rural and sparsely populated areas cannot be easily extracted.

International education-specific studies typically focus on a number of common themes reflecting the previous discourse, as per Table 7.4. It should be noted that coverage varies by source. Links to sources are provided in the Useful Links section at the end of the book. Where education is included in general digital economy and society frameworks, it typically focuses on internet access and computer availability in schools (ITU, 2018; Katz & Callorda, 2018). Despite the important role that education plays in both society and economies, many of these general frameworks do not include education at all—as is the case, for example, with the EU Digital Economy & Society Index (Digital Economy and Skills Unit, 2018).

Table 7.4 Common themes and selected data sources for digital technologies in education
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7.5 Conclusion

Education plays a fundamental role in the onward march of societies and economies. Through formal, non-formal and informal means, citizens are imbued with the norms, skills and knowledge that they need to prosper in society. This equally applies to the Digital Society. As such, it is unsurprising that digital technologies have become central pillars of government education and training strategies worldwide. While there is widespread enthusiasm about the potential for digital technologies in education, there is both a digital deficit and a digital divide. The former relates to the lack of conclusive evidence on the positive impact of digital investments in education, while the latter relates to the divides between the haves and have-nots. Unfortunately this includes the most vulnerable in society—the socio-economically disadvantaged, older adults, younger children, those with special needs—as well as those living in rural areas.