The Relationship Between the Digital Literacy Levels of Employee-Parents and Their Children's Academic Achievement

This study examined the relationship between digital literacy levels of employed parents and their children’s academic achievement in Kota Bandung, Indonesia. Growing evidence suggests that parental involvement in technology-mediated learning increasingly depends on parents’ own digital competencies, yet employed parents face time and workload constraints that may limit such involvement, an issue that remains underexplored in the empirical literature. Using a quantitative correlational design, data were collected from 100 employed parents with school-aged children, selected through simple random sampling. Parents’ digital literacy was measured across five dimensions accessing, evaluating, using, communicating, and safety awareness—using a validated five-point Likert questionnaire, while children’s academic achievement was measured using official semester report card scores. Data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially using IBM SPSS, following verification of normality (Kolmogorov–Smirnov test) and the instrument’s validity (item-total correlation) and reliability (Cronbach’s alpha ≥ 0.70). Results showed that parents reported a moderate-to-high level of digital literacy (M = 3.82, SD = 0.52) and children demonstrated a relatively high average academic achievement (M = 82.96, SD = 5.25). Pearson correlation analysis revealed a strong, positive, and statistically significant relationship between parents’ digital literacy and children’s academic achievement (r = 0.656, p < .001), with digital literacy accounting for approximately 43.08% of the variance in academic achievement. These findings indicate that employed parents with higher digital competencies are better positioned to support their children’s learning despite occupational constraints, offering practical implications for schools, employers, and policymakers seeking to strengthen family digital literacy in the workplace era.