Digital Skills Assessment Executive Summary
June 12, 2023
Project Background
The Washington State Legislature awarded $100,000 for fiscal year 2023 to the Washington State Library (Office of the Secretary of State) to design and carry out a statewide baseline assessment of Washingtonians’ “digital literacy.” In preparation for bidding the project, the Library conducted a preparatory literature review of best practices and worked with an advisory group of digital skills support providers statewide to form its request. Based on this review and advisory group recommendations, the Library refined the assessment’s scope to emphasize the following:
- Focusing on historically underserved audiences – those identified as priority “covered populations” in the 2021 U.S. Digital Equity Act, along with a few other audiences recommended by the advisory group (e.g., youth, urban populations).
- Using mostly small-scale, qualitative methods, rather than large telephone surveys, in order to gather richer, deeper content.
- Working with trusted community partners/liaisons to reach Washingtonians, with portions of the project budget dedicated to compensation or support services (e.g., childcare) for liaisons and respondents.
After a Request for Proposals process, Equity in Education (EEC) was awarded the contract beginning March 30th. Their research is compiled in the attached report and appendices. The Library considered this project as an initial foundation, evaluating the effectiveness of the approach and its potential for future development.
Key Takeaways
Overall, the initial project reinforces the Library’s commitment to this approach. Working with its established network of trusted community liaisons, EEC in a matter of weeks reached Washingtonians from multiple target audiences, especially immigrant and English-as-a-second-language households. EEC also gathered observations from dozens of its digital navigators who have annually served more than 20,000 Washingtonians statewide, largely from target audiences. Data-gathering through short surveys and interviews surfaced rich comments that point the way to responsive service and next steps in assessment. EEC’s report, as well as all materials related to this project are available in a guide available on the Library’s website.
Findings Highlights
Underlying comments provided in EEC’s report and workbooks provide valuable insights into how Washingtonians use and value the internet, and how responsive support can help them thrive. Some highlights include the following.
- Community members said they used the internet for a variety of common purposes – for work, studies, shopping, social connection (such as videocalls with family) entertainment and other leisure.
- More than half of community members said they first turned to family members (often a child or adult child) about technology snags, followed by online resources (e.g., YouTube video). A minority of community members said they might also seek help from schools, community organizations or libraries. Digital navigators also said clients seeking help outside the home would turn to community-based, cultural or religious organizations; libraries; and schools.
- Community members overwhelmingly cited inadequate home internet and devices as their greatest barrier to improving their digital skills. At least three quarters of community members said they needed stronger, more reliable internet at home, or access to any internet at all. At least two thirds of community members said they needed more devices or better devices (newer, a laptop rather than a tablet) devices for the household.
- A question about households’ pre- and post-pandemic internet use was extremely effective at surfacing everyday internet uses and goals, both among community member and digital navigator responses. The question also elicited natural commentary about how households hoped to use the internet in the future, and what they believed they needed in order to meet those goals.
- The pandemic forced more and new internet use in many responding households, both community members and digital navigators said. This transition was often very stressful (e.g., families using cellphones to get homework done, sending children to others’ homes to finish schoolwork, more isolation and misinformation). But some community members also expressed satisfaction at learning new things or enjoying online conveniences and said they wanted to use the internet to learn more (e.g., pursuing education, learning English). Digital navigators also noted trends among small business owners, who wanted to improve their use of social media or online tools for marketing, or among elders, who liked getting health information or services online.
- Digital navigators had a variety of perspectives on effective outreach and service. Many found their services most successful when navigators went to places where community members already gathered and were at ease. Others said classes and central events could be effective, especially if they were available at different times and days of the week and provided language support.
Selected Quotes
- Before COVID I wasn't using the internet as much especially with my school which was in person. Now my classes are online which is easier and has enabled me to learn more because I have kids at home and attending class in person was hard. Before COVID internet was mainly for fun or talking to family. Now I need it to do daily task.
- No we don't have the best digital experience at home as we bounce off school WiFi and a WiFi box that my son uses daily. We have the devices we need but when using them the lag a lot and freeze due to poor internet. Some of our phones are broken but we use when we have no other things to use.
- It is very frustrating for everyone when we cannot get a strong signal for an important job, … for a student to perform his colloquium activities. It would be worth saying …it would be better to get better equipment and without any damage so as not to run risks of accidents with damaged equipment. … It was very sad to have lost the only computer at home due to an accident.
- I would like to learn more about how to be more informed in my daughter’s school, learn how to help my daughter with her education and be closer with her education.
- Access to more schooling through legitimate sources. If I want to learn something for work, it’s hard to figure out what’s a scam vs. what can actually help.
- It would be very helpful to have a better reception and better internet and to be able to have these services when leaving home because I feel totally dislocated and incommunicado when leaving my home.
- I don’t have a computer or a TV and internet is everything.
- The internet is at a very high cost, I’m paying $ 95 dollars per month and the quality is not excellent for that price.
Next steps
The Washington State Library would like to expand data-gathering to reach other target audiences and regions of the state.
The Library would also like to expand research to include observations from other types of digital skills support providers, including those from other community-based organizations, government, health care, libraries, schools, tribes and workforce development. Future research should also explore the effectiveness of different provider types working with trusted community liaisons and compensating subjects. (Although this project gathered some comments about common providers of digital skills support services, it did not directly survey most provider types or evaluate their services.)