Evaluation of Students’ Digital Literacy Based on Network Psychometrics

Digital literacy is a crucial component of comprehensive competence in the digital age. The evaluation of digital literacy is also a key step in enhancing students’ digital literacy. However, the existing methods used to assess digital literacy are limited to measuring student levels by scores. The current methods neglect any exploration of the intrinsic connections between elements, making it difficult to deeply reveal the development status of students’ digital literacy. Those using network psychometrics advocate the use of network models to represent the intrinsic connections between the elements of traits. This approach allows for an in-depth analysis of the nature of trait development and changes. This in turn makes it possible to grasp the full picture of students’ digital literacy and then formulate targeted intervention measures. This study takes the digital literacy evaluation data of 57,065 junior high school students in Shandong Province as a sample. Using network psychometrics, digital literacy networks are constructed for different groups of students, and the various indicators are compared. The results show that network psychometrics help to deeply analyze the current status of students’ digital literacy levels, as well as the intrinsic connections between elements. This study thereby expands the ideas and methods of evaluating students’ digital literacy and supports the precise cultivation of students’ digital literacy.