Digital Literacy and Informal Learning among Students: A Case of Students in Petroleum Training Institute, Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

Digital literacy is a set of 21st-century skills associated with the effective use of technology. This study investigated  digital literacy skills of students and informal learning, a case of students of Petroleum Training Institute (PTI)  in  Effurun, Delta State, Nigeria. Five research questions guided the study. Adopting the descriptive survey  research design,  220 students were accidentally selected from the population of students in the institution.  The research design  was survey and questionnaire served as the instrument for the collection of data. The  finding revealed that the students  in Petroleum Training Institute (PTI), Effurun engage in informal learning  activities through social networking  platforms, reading of web pages such as blogs and reports, reading of  books, watching television programmes and  taking online courses. They have moderate digital literacy skills  and most of them make use of YouTube, WhatsApp  group chat, Blogs, Wiki (Wikipedia), Twitter, Facebook  groups, Google Talk (Hangouts), Pinterest, and Yahoo Answer.  However, their extent of use of digital literacy  tools in informal learning is low and they face challenges such as lack of  familiarity with some digital literacy  tools, limited internet access, high cost of data for surfing online, delay in  downloading information from web  browsers and difficulties when searching for the necessary materials.