2025/12/06 by Chunkai Li, Miaoji Zhang, Kexin Xie · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · #Child Development and Digital Technology #Literacy, Media, and Education #Digital literacy in education
paper · doi:10.1080/1369118x.2025.2584142
openalex created_date 2025/12/06 · openalex publication_date 2025/12/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Digital literacy is increasingly recognized as a pivotal twenty-first-century skill for children and adolescents. In response, schools across diverse regions have implemented programs targeting specific competencies such as media literacy and information literacy, which are integral components of digital literacy. To address the fragmented focus and limited integrated quantitative evidence in prior research, we conducted a meta-analysis synthesizing the effectiveness of school-based digital literacy interventions and examining potential moderators. A systematic search of 9 databases (EBSCO, PubMed, PsycINFO, etc.) identified 10 randomized controlled or quasi-experimental studies (N = 6,250; ages 8−18) that reported sufficient data for the calculation of standardized mean difference (SMD) metrics. Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted in R. The findings indicated that school-based interventions moderately improved digital literacy among children and adolescents (SMD = 0.16) once after the intervention. The magnitude of the effect was more pronounced in smaller studies with 300 or fewer participants (SMD = 0.34), among adolescents in primary school (SMD = 0.34), and in interventions that were explicitly theory-driven (SMD = 0.19). The results clarify the overall effectiveness of digital literacy programs in school settings and provide actionable guidance for designing equitable and sustainable educational strategies, offering insights for policymakers, schools, and other practitioners.