Digital literacy and the associated skills are becoming the basic and essential skill set of any employer that wishes to survive in a highly competitive world. Given the global importance of these skills for many sectors including education, medicine, information technology, tourism, etc., the researchers sought to determine which digital literacy skills were most important in using digital technology, communications tools, and/or networks to access, manage, integrate, evaluate, create and communicate information in order to function in a knowledge society. From a multistage random sampling survey of 400 second semester university seniors finishing their degrees in 2014 at 9 Thai public and private universities, it was determined that the ability to evaluate was the most important skill indicator in the development of digital literacy. Analysis was conducted by use of LISREL 8.72.

No abstract

The purpose of this descriptive study was to apply 2nd order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural relationship models to identify the digital competency components essential to undergraduate students in Thai higher education institutions. The sample comprised 1,126 specialists in Information Technology, Computer Technology, Computer Education, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering working in public higher education instructions throughout the country. The selection was the result of multi-stage random sampling from 76 public higher education instructions that offer undergraduate education. The instrument was a questionnaire form on essential digital competency components for undergraduate students in higher education institutions. The question items employed a 7-point Likert scale and showed Cronbach's alpha values for the content validity and reliability at a range of.93-.97 per domain and .87-.99 per component. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for general data and 2nd Order CFA analysis. The findings revealed that from 24 observed variables, there were 7 competency components.: 1) Fundamental of digital ; 2) Accessing digital information; 3) Using digital information; 4) Creating digital information and media; 5) Communicating digital information; 6) Managing digital information; and 7) Evaluating digital information. The discovery from this study was substantially constructive for Thai higher education institutions as it could be used to design an essential digital competency framework of the 21st century.

As Thailand moves through the 21st Century, the education system and resultant labour force must be prepared for the rapid changes in Thailand’s society, culture, politics, economy, and technologies. Previously, the 21st century framework has identified crucial elements to their future success as information literacy, media literacy, and information and communication technology (ICT) literacy skills. Given this priority, by use of multistage clustering sampling, 600 Thai junior high school students were selected, from which a five-level, 73-item Likert type agreement scale questionnaire was used to collect data from October 2017 to December 2017. The analysis of the student’s skills in information literacy, media literacy, and ICT literacy was conducted with the use of SPSS Version 24 and mean (¯(x )), standard deviation (S.D.), the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test, and Bartlett's test of sphericity for analysis. Furthermore, a second-order confirmatory factor analysis was undertaken in which AMOS Version 24 software was used. Based on the second order CFA, it was found that the Information, Media and Technology Skills (IMTS) model was composed of three components that corresponded to the empirical data, with the most important element being ICT literacy, followed by media literacy, and finally, information literacy.

Qualitative and quantitative research methods were undertaken to examine and develop a digitally based virtual classroom learning environment (VCLE) for Thai undergraduate students’ creative thinking and innovation enhancement in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEM/STEAM) disciplines. The research methodology was divided into two phases, including the synthesis and then the design of the VCLE. Also, in addition to the study’s authors, nine experts were used for the model’s development and another ten for its assessment (19 total). From their in-depth interviews and subsequent content analysis, their input of the proposed STEAM-ification process was synthesized and the data analyzed. The results revealed that the VCLE design should begin with a face-to-face, classroom learning environment in which the ‘ gamification ’ mechanisms were introduced and examined. This was then reinforced by moving the gamification process online outside of the classroom. Furthermore, five VCLE STEAM-ification steps were found to be particularly useful for enhancing creative thinking and student innovation. These included investigation , discovery , connections , creativity , and reflection . Moreover, we identified the gamification process as consisting of three main components. These were the ‘ game mechanics ,' the ‘ game dynamics ,' and ‘ player emotions ’. The ten experts agreed that the VCLE STEAM-ification creativity and innovation (C & I) process was appropriate at an ‘ excellent ’ level ( = 4.68, S. D. = 0.47), which has great potential in the development of Thai undergraduate student C & I skills. Also, when undertaken correctly, innovation and motivation to learn are also outcomes from both VCLE and gamification applications. Thus, when students undertook study with the VCLE STEAM-ification format, they were found to achieve higher levels of creativity and innovation than students who studied using the traditional teaching plan. These results were found to be statistically significant at the .01 level.