Tinmaz et al.

Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Smart Learning Environments

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-022-00204-y

RESEARCH Open Access

A systematic review on digital literacy

Hasan Tinmaz1 , Yoo‑Taek Lee2 , Mina Fanea‑Ivanovici3   and Hasnan Baber4*   

*Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract
1
AI & Big Data Department, The purpose of this study is to discover the main themes and categories of the research
Endicott College of International studies regarding digital literacy. To serve this purpose, the databases of WoS/Clarivate
Studies, Woosong University, Analytics, Proquest Central, Emerald Management Journals, Jstor Business College Col‑
Daejeon, South Korea
2
Endicott College lections and Scopus/Elsevier were searched with four keyword-combinations and final
of International Studies, forty-three articles were included in the dataset. The researchers applied a systematic
Woosong University, Daejeon, literature review method to the dataset. The preliminary findings demonstrated that
South Korea
3
Department of Economics there is a growing prevalence of digital literacy articles starting from the year 2013.
and Economic Policies, Bucharest The dominant research methodology of the reviewed articles is qualitative. The four
University of Economic Studies, major themes revealed from the qualitative content analysis are: digital literacy, digital
Bucharest, Romania
4
Abu Dhabi School competencies, digital skills and digital thinking. Under each theme, the categories and
of Management, Abu Dhabi, their frequencies are analysed. Recommendations for further research and for real life
United Arab Emirates implementations are generated.
Keywords: Digital literacy, Digital competencies, Digital skills, Digital thinking,
Systematic review, Qualitative research

Introduction
The extant literature on digital literacy, skills and competencies is rich in definitions and
classifications, but there is still no consensus on the larger themes and subsumed themes
categories. (Heitin, 2016). To exemplify, existing inventories of Internet skills suffer from
‘incompleteness and over-simplification, conceptual ambiguity’ (van Deursen et al.,
2015), and Internet skills are only a part of digital skills. While there is already a pleth-
ora of research in this field, this research paper hereby aims to provide a general frame-
work of digital areas and themes that can best describe digital (cap)abilities in the novel
context of Industry 4.0 and the accelerated pandemic-triggered digitalisation. The areas
and themes can represent the starting point for drafting a contemporary digital literacy
framework.
Sousa and Rocha (2019) explained that there is a stake of digital skills for disruptive
digital business, and they connect it to the latest developments, such as the Internet of
Things (IoT), cloud technology, big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The topic is
even more important given the large disparities in digital literacy across regions (Tinmaz
et al., 2022). More precisely, digital inequalities encompass skills, along with access,
usage and self-perceptions. These inequalities need to be addressed, as they are cred-
ited with a ‘potential to shape life chances in multiple ways’ (Robinson et al., 2015), e.g.,

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Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 2 of 18

academic performance, labour market competitiveness, health, civic and political par-
ticipation. Steps have been successfully taken to address physical access gaps, but skills
gaps are still looming (Van Deursen & Van Dijk, 2010a). Moreover, digital inequalities
have grown larger due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and they influenced the very state
of health of the most vulnerable categories of population or their employability in a time
when digital skills are required (Baber et al., 2022; Beaunoyer, Dupéré & Guitton, 2020).
The systematic review the researchers propose is a useful updated instrument of clas-
sification and inventory for digital literacy. Considering the latest developments in the
economy and in line with current digitalisation needs, digitally literate population may
assist policymakers in various fields, e.g., education, administration, healthcare system,
and managers of companies and other concerned organisations that need to stay com-
petitive and to employ competitive workforce. Therefore, it is indispensably vital to com-
prehend the big picture of digital literacy related research.

Literature review
Since the advent of Digital Literacy, scholars have been concerned with identifying and
classifying the various (cap)abilities related to its operation. Using the most cited aca-
demic papers in this stream of research, several classifications of digital-related litera-
cies, competencies, and skills emerged.

Digital literacies
Digital literacy, which is one of the challenges of integration of technology in academic
courses (Blau, Shamir-Inbal & Avdiel, 2020), has been defined in the current literature as
the competencies and skills required for navigating a fragmented and complex information
ecosystem (Eshet, 2004). A ‘Digital Literacy Framework’ was designed by Eshet-Alkalai
(2012), comprising six categories: (a) photo-visual thinking (understanding and using vis-
ual information); (b) real-time thinking (simultaneously processing a variety of stimuli);
(c) information thinking (evaluating and combining information from multiple digital
sources); (d) branching thinking (navigating in non-linear hyper-media environments);
(e) reproduction thinking (creating outcomes using technological tools by designing new
content or remixing existing digital content); (f) social-emotional thinking (understand-
ing and applying cyberspace rules). According to Heitin (2016), digital literacy groups the
following clusters: (a) finding and consuming digital content; (b) creating digital content;
(c) communicating or sharing digital content. Hence, the literature describes the digital
literacy in many ways by associating a set of various technical and non-technical elements.

Digital competencies
The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (DigComp 2.1.), the most recent frame-
work proposed by the European Union, which is currently under review and under-
going an updating process, contains five competency areas: (a) information and data
literacy, (b) communication and collaboration, (c) digital content creation, (d) safety,
and (e) problem solving (Carretero, Vuorikari & Punie, 2017). Digital competency had
previously been described in a technical fashion by Ferrari (2012) as a set comprising
information skills, communication skills, content creation skills, safety skills, and prob-
lem-solving skills, which later outlined the areas of competence in DigComp 2.1, too.
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 3 of 18

Digital skills
Ng (2012) pointed out the following three categories of digital skills: (a) technological
(using technological tools); (b) cognitive (thinking critically when managing informa-
tion); (c) social (communicating and socialising). A set of Internet skill was suggested
by Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2009, 2010b), which contains: (a) operational skills (basic
skills in using internet technology), (b) formal Internet skills (navigation and orienta-
tion skills); (c) information Internet skills (fulfilling information needs), and (d) strate-
gic Internet skills (using the internet to reach goals). In 2014, the same authors added
communication and content creation skills to the initial framework (van Dijk & van
Deursen). Similarly, Helsper and Eynon (2013) put forward a set of four digital skills:
technical, social, critical, and creative skills. Furthermore, van Deursen et al. (2015) built
a set of items and factors to measure Internet skills: operational, information navigation,
social, creative, mobile. More recent literature (vaan Laar et al., 2017) divides digital
skills into seven core categories: technical, information management, communication,
collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving.
It is worth mentioning that the various methodologies used to classify digital literacy
are overlapping or non-exhaustive, which confirms the conceptual ambiguity mentioned
by van Deursen et al. (2015).

Digital thinking
Thinking skills (along with digital skills) have been acknowledged to be a significant ele-
ment of digital literacy in the educational process context (Ferrari, 2012). In fact, criti-
cal thinking, creativity, and innovation are at the very core of DigComp. Information
and Communication Technology as a support for thinking is a learning objective in any
school curriculum. In the same vein, analytical thinking and interdisciplinary think-
ing, which help solve problems, are yet other concerns of educators in the Industry 4.0
(Ozkan-Ozen & Kazancoglu, 2021).
However, we have recently witnessed a shift of focus from learning how to use infor-
mation and communication technologies to using it while staying safe in the cyber-
environment and being aware of alternative facts. Digital thinking would encompass
identifying fake news, misinformation, and echo chambers (Sulzer, 2018). Not least
important, concern about cybersecurity has grown especially in times of political, social
or economic turmoil, such as the elections or the Covid-19 crisis (Sulzer, 2018; Puig,
Blanco-Anaya & Perez-Maceira, 2021).
Ultimately, this systematic review paper focuses on the following major research ques-
tions as follows:

Research question 1: What is the yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers?
Research question 2: What are the research methods for digital literacy related
papers?
Research question 3: What are the main themes in digital literacy related papers?
Research question 4: What are the concentrated categories (under revealed main
themes) in digital literacy related papers?
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 4 of 18

Method
This study employed the systematic review method where the authors scrutinized the
existing literature around the major research question of digital literacy. As Uman (2011)
pointed, in systematic literature review, the findings of the earlier research are examined
for the identification of consistent and repetitive themes. The systematic review method
differs from literature review with its well managed and highly organized qualitative
scrutiny processes where researchers tend to cover less materials from fewer number
of databases to write their literature review (Kowalczyk & Truluck, 2013; Robinson &
Lowe, 2015).

Data collection
To address major research objectives, the following five important databases are selected
due to their digital literacy focused research dominance: 1. WoS/Clarivate Analytics, 2.
Proquest Central; 3. Emerald Management Journals; 4. Jstor Business College Collec-
tions; 5. Scopus/Elsevier.
The search was made in the second half of June 2021, in abstract and key words written
in English language. We only kept research articles and book chapters (herein referred to
as papers). Our purpose was to identify a set of digital literacy areas, or an inventory of
such areas and topics. To serve that purpose, systematic review was utilized with the fol-
lowing synonym key words for the search: ‘digital literacy’, ‘digital skills’, ‘digital compe-
tence’ and ‘digital fluency’, to find the mainstream literature dealing with the topic. These
key words were unfolded as a result of the consultation with the subject matter experts
(two board members from Korean Digital Literacy Association and two professors from
technology studies department). Below are the four key word combinations used in the
search: “Digital literacy AND systematic review”, “Digital skills AND systematic review”,
“Digital competence AND systematic review”, and “Digital fluency AND systematic
review”.
A sequential systematic search was made in the five databases mentioned above. Thus,
from one database to another, duplicate papers were manually excluded in a cascade
manner to extract only unique results and to make the research smoother to conduct. At
this stage, we kept 47 papers. Further exclusion criteria were applied. Thus, only full-text
items written in English were selected, and in doing so, three papers were excluded (no
full text available), and one other paper was excluded because it was not written in Eng-
lish, but in Spanish. Therefore, we investigated a total number of 43 papers, as shown in
Table 1. “Appendix A” shows the list of these papers with full references.

Data analysis
The 43 papers selected after the application of the inclusion and exclusion criteria,
respectively, were reviewed the materials independently by two researchers who were
from two different countries. The researchers identified all topics pertaining to digital
literacy, as they appeared in the papers. Next, a third researcher independently analysed
these findings by excluded duplicates A qualitative content analysis was manually per-
formed by calculating the frequency of major themes in all papers, where the raw data
was compared and contrasted (Fraenkel et al., 2012). All three reviewers independently
list the words and how the context in which they appeared and then the three reviewers
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 5 of 18

Table 1 Number of papers identified sequentially after applying all inclusion and exclusion criteria
Database Keyword combinations Total
number of
Digital Digital skills Digital Digital fluency papers
literacy AND AND systematic competence AND systematic
systematic review AND systematic review
review review

1. WoS/Clarivate 4 papers 3 papers 5 papers – 12 papers

Analytics
2. Proquest Central 7 papers 4 papers – 1 paper 12 papers
3.Emerald Manage‑ 3 papers 1 paper 1 paper - 5 papers
ment Jour
4. Jstor Business Col‑ 9 papers – – 1 paper 10 papers
lege Collection
5. Scopus, Elsevier 4 papers – – – 4 papers
Total per keyword 27 papers 8 papers 6 papers 2 papers 43 papers
combination

collectively decided for how it should be categorized. Lastly, it is vital to remind that lit-
erature review of this article was written after the identification of the themes appeared
as a result of our qualitative analyses. Therefore, the authors decided to shape the litera-
ture review structure based on the themes.

Results
As an answer to the first research question (the yearly distribution of digital literacy
related papers), Fig. 1 demonstrates the yearly distribution of digital literacy related
papers. It is seen that there is an increasing trend about the digital literacy papers.
Research question number two (The research methods for digital literacy related
papers) concentrates on what research methods are employed for these digital literacy
related papers. As Fig. 2 shows, most of the papers were using the qualitative method.
Not stated refers to book chapters.
When forty-three articles were analysed for the main themes as in research question
number three (The main themes in digital literacy related papers), the overall findings
were categorized around four major themes: (i) literacies, (ii) competencies, (iii) skills,
and (iv) thinking. Under every major theme, the categories were listed and explained as
in research question number four (The concentrated categories (under revealed main
themes) in digital literacy related papers).
The authors utilized an overt categorization for the depiction of these major themes.
For example, when the ‘creativity’ was labelled as a skill, the authors also categorized it
under the ‘skills’ theme. Similarly, when ‘creativity’ was mentioned as a competency, the
authors listed it under the ‘competencies’ theme. Therefore, it is possible to recognize
the same finding under different major themes.

Major theme 1: literacies

Digital literacy being the major concern of this paper was observed to be blatantly
mentioned in five papers out forty-three. One of these articles described digital lit-
eracy as the human proficiencies to live, learn and work in the current digital society.
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 6 of 18

14
2020, 13
12

10
Number of articles

8
2018, 5
2021, 7
6 2012, 1

2017, 5
4 2011, 1
2009, 1
2013, 3 2019, 3
2 2015, 2
2001, 1 2014, 1
0
2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025
Year
Fig. 1 Yearly distribution of digital literacy related papers

Not Stated
Method

Qualitative

Quantitative

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Number of articles
Fig. 2 Research methods used in the reviewed articles

In addition to these five articles, two additional papers used the same term as ‘critical
digital literacy’ by describing it as a person’s or a society’s accessibility and assessment
level interaction with digital technologies to utilize and/or create information. Table 2
summarizes the major categories under ‘Literacies’ major theme.
Computer literacy, media literacy and cultural literacy were the second most com-
mon literacy (n = 5). One of the article branches computer literacy as tool (detailing
with software and hardware uses) and resource (focusing on information processing
capacity of a computer) literacies. Cultural literacy was emphasized as a vital element
for functioning in an intercultural team on a digital project.
Disciplinary literacy (n = 4) was referring to utilizing different computer programs
(n = 2) or technical gadgets (n = 2) with a specific emphasis on required cognitive,
affective and psychomotor skills to be able to work in any digital context (n = 3), serv-
ing for the using (n = 2), creating and applying (n = 2) digital literacy in real life.
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 7 of 18

Table 2 Categories (more than one occurrence) under ’literacies’ major theme
Category n Category n Category n

Digital literacy 5 Disciplinary literacy 4 Web literacy 2

Critical digital literacy 2 Data literacy 3 New literacy 2
Computer literacy 5 Technology literacy 3 Mobile literacy 2
Media literacy 5 Multiliteracy 3 Personal literacy 2
Cultural literacy 5 Internet literacy 2 Research literacy 2

Table 3 Other mentioned categories (n = 1)

Advanced digital assessment literacy Intermediate digital Search literacy
assessment literacy

Attention literacy Library literacy Social media literacy

Basic digital assessment literacy Metaliteracy Social-structural literacy
Conventional print literacy Multimodal literacy Tagging literacy
Critical literacy Network literacy Television literacy
Emerging technology literacy News literacy Transcultural digital literacy
Film literacy Participatory literacy Transliteracy
Filtering literacy Publishing literacy

Data literacy, technology literacy and multiliteracy were the third frequent catego-
ries (n = 3). The ‘multiliteracy’ was referring to the innate nature of digital technologies,
which have been infused into many aspects of human lives.
Last but not least, Internet literacy, mobile literacy, web literacy, new literacy, personal
literacy and research literacy were discussed in forty-three article findings. Web literacy
was focusing on being able to connect with people on the web (n = 2), discover the web
content (especially the navigation on a hyper-textual platform), and learn web related
skills through practical web experiences. Personal literacy was highlighting digital iden-
tity management. Research literacy was not only concentrating on conducting scientific
research ability but also finding available scholarship online.
Twenty-four other categories are unfolded from the results sections of forty-three
articles. Table 3 presents the list of these other literacies where the authors sorted the
categories in an ascending alphabetical order without any other sorting criterion. Pri-
marily, search, tagging, filtering and attention literacies were mainly underlining their
roles in information processing. Furthermore, social-structural literacy was indicated
as the recognition of the social circumstances and generation of information. Another
information-related literacy was pointed as publishing literacy, which is the ability to
disseminate information via different digital channels.
While above listed personal literacy was referring to digital identity management, net-
work literacy was explained as someone’s social networking ability to manage the digi-
tal relationship with other people. Additionally, participatory literacy was defined as the
necessary abilities to join an online team working on online content production.
Emerging technology literacy was stipulated as an essential ability to recognize and
appreciate the most recent and innovative technologies in along with smart choices
related to these technologies. Additionally, the critical literacy was added as an ability to
make smart judgements on the cost benefit analysis of these recent technologies.
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 8 of 18

Last of all, basic, intermediate, and advanced digital assessment literacies were spec-
ified for educational institutions that are planning to integrate various digital tools to
conduct instructional assessments in their bodies.

Major theme 2: competencies

The second major theme was revealed as competencies. The authors directly categorized
the findings that are specified with the word of competency. Table 4 summarizes the
entire category set for the competencies major theme.
The most common category was the ‘digital competence’ (n = 14) where one of the
articles points to that category as ‘generic digital competence’ referring to someone’s
creativity for multimedia development (video editing was emphasized). Under this broad
category, the following sub-categories were associated:

• Problem solving (n = 10)

• Safety (n = 7)
• Information processing (n = 5)
• Content creation (n = 5)
• Communication (n = 2)
• Digital rights (n = 1)
• Digital emotional intelligence (n = 1)
• Digital teamwork (n = 1)
• Big data utilization (n = 1)
• Artificial Intelligence utilization (n = 1)
• Virtual leadership (n = 1)
• Self-disruption (in along with the pace of digitalization) (n = 1)

Like ‘digital competency’, five additional articles especially coined the term as ‘digi-
tal competence as a life skill’. Deeper analysis demonstrated the following points: social
competences (n = 4), communication in mother tongue (n = 3) and foreign language
(n = 2), entrepreneurship (n = 3), civic competence (n = 2), fundamental science (n = 1),
technology (n = 1) and mathematics (n = 1) competences, learning to learn (n = 1) and
self-initiative (n = 1).
Moreover, competencies were linked to workplace digital competencies in three
articles and highlighted as significant for employability (n = 3) and ‘economic

Table 4 Categories under ’competencies’ major theme

Category n Category n

Digital competence 14 Cross-cultural competencies 1

Digital competence as a life skill 5 Digital teaching competence 1
Digital competence for work 3 Balancing digital usage 1
Economic engagement 3 Political engagement 1
Digital competence for leisure 2 Complex system modelling competencies 1
Digital communication 2 Simulation competencies 1
Intercultural competencies 2 Digital nativity 1
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 9 of 18

Table 5 Categories under ’skills’ major theme

Category n Category n

Information literacy skills 19 Decision making skills 3

ICT skills 18 Social intelligence 3
Communication skills 9 Digital learning 2
Collaboration skills 9 Digital teaching 2
Digital content creation skills 4 Digital fluency 2
Ethics for digital environment 4 Digital awareness 2
Research skills 3 Creativity 2

Table 6 Sub-categories under ‘information literacy’ and ‘ICT’ skills

Sub-category for information literacy skills n Sub-category for ICT skills n

Evaluating information 6 Technical skills 4

Using obtained information 4 Attitude towards ICT 4
Legal use of information 3 Use of social media 3
Finding information 3 Intention to use ICT 2
Locating information 2 Beliefs about the use of ICT 1
Feeling the need for information 1 General knowledge of ICT 1
Documenting information 1 Use of chat 1
Life-long learning 1 Use of email 1
Trial and error 1 Digital text skills 1
Dealing with the excessiveness of information 1 Use of multimedia technologies 1
Coding 1

engagement’ (n = 3). Digital competencies were also detailed for leisure (n = 2) and
communication (n = 2). Furthermore, two articles pointed digital competencies as an
inter-cultural competency and one as a cross-cultural competency. Lastly, the ‘digital
nativity’ (n = 1) was clarified as someone’s innate competency of being able to feel
contented and satisfied with digital technologies.

Major theme 3: skills

The third major observed theme was ‘skills’, which was dominantly gathered around
information literacy skills (n = 19) and information and communication technologies
skills (n = 18). Table 5 demonstrates the categories with more than one occurrence.
Table 6 summarizes the sub-categories of the two most frequent categories of ‘skills’
major theme. The information literacy skills noticeably concentrate on the steps of
information processing; evaluation (n = 6), utilization (n = 4), finding (n = 3), locating
(n = 2) information. Moreover, the importance of trial/error process, being a lifelong
learner, feeling a need for information and so forth were evidently listed under this
sub-category. On the other hand, ICT skills were grouped around cognitive and affec-
tive domains. For instance, while technical skills in general and use of social media,
coding, multimedia, chat or emailing in specific were reported in cognitive domain,
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 10 of 18

attitude, intention, and belief towards ICT were mentioned as the elements of affec-
tive domain.
Communication skills (n = 9) were multi-dimensional for different societies, cultures,
and globalized contexts, requiring linguistic skills. Collaboration skills (n = 9) are also
recurrently cited with an explicit emphasis for virtual platforms.
‘Ethics for digital environment’ encapsulated ethical use of information (n = 4) and
different technologies (n = 2), knowing digital laws (n = 2) and responsibilities (n = 2)
in along with digital rights and obligations (n = 1), having digital awareness (n = 1), fol-
lowing digital etiquettes (n = 1), treating other people with respect (n = 1) including no
cyber-bullying (n = 1) and no stealing or damaging other people (n = 1).
‘Digital fluency’ involved digital access (n = 2) by using different software and hard-
ware (n = 2) in online platforms (n = 1) or communication tools (n = 1) or within pro-
gramming environments (n = 1). Digital fluency also underlined following recent
technological advancements (n = 1) and knowledge (n = 1) including digital health and
wellness (n = 1) dimension.
‘Social intelligence’ related to understanding digital culture (n = 1), the concept of
digital exclusion (n = 1) and digital divide (n = 3). ‘Research skills’ were detailed with
searching academic information (n = 3) on databases such as Web of Science and Scopus
(n = 2) and their citation, summarization, and quotation (n = 2).
‘Digital teaching’ was described as a skill (n = 2) in Table 4 whereas it was also labelled
as a competence (n = 1) as shown in Table 3. Similarly, while learning to learn (n = 1)
was coined under competencies in Table 3, digital learning (n = 2, Table 4) and life-
long learning (n = 1, Table 5) were stated as learning related skills. Moreover, learning
was used with the following three terms: learning readiness (n = 1), self-paced learning
(n = 1) and learning flexibility (n = 1).
Table 7 shows other categories listed below the ‘skills’ major theme. The list covers not
only the software such as GIS, text mining, mapping, or bibliometric analysis programs
but also the conceptual skills such as the fourth industrial revolution and information
management.

Major theme 4: thinking

The last identified major theme was the different types of ‘thinking’. As Table 8 shows,
‘critical thinking’ was the most frequent thinking category (n = 4). Except computational
thinking, the other categories were not detailed.

Table 7 Categories (one-time occurrence) under ’skills’ major theme

Category Category Category

Digital connectivity skill Culture transformation Text mining

Digital systems skill Readiness to Industry 4.0 GIS (geographic
information system)
Re(design) skill Internet of Things (IoT) Bibliometric analysis
Digital readiness Technology-human adaptation Mapping
Digital commerce Information management
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 11 of 18

Table 8 Categories under ‘thinking’ major theme

Category n Category n

Critical thinking 4 System thinking 1

Computational thinking 3 Interdisciplinary thinking 1
Analytical thinking 1 Purposeful thinking 1
Innovative thinking 1 Quick thinking 1

Computational thinking (n = 3) was associated with the general logic of how a com-
puter works and sub-categorized into the following steps; construction of the problem
(n = 3), abstraction (n = 1), disintegration of the problem (n = 2), data collection, (n = 2),
data analysis (n = 2), algorithmic design (n = 2), parallelization & iteration (n = 1), auto-
mation (n = 1), generalization (n = 1), and evaluation (n = 2).
A transversal analysis of digital literacy categories reveals the following fields of digital
literacy application:

• Technological advancement (IT, ICT, Industry 4.0, IoT, text mining, GIS, bibliomet-
ric analysis, mapping data, technology, AI, big data)
• Networking (Internet, web, connectivity, network, safety)
• Information (media, news, communication)
• Creative-cultural industries (culture, publishing, film, TV, leisure, content creation)
• Academia (research, documentation, library)
• Citizenship (participation, society, social intelligence, awareness, politics, rights, legal
use, ethics)
• Education (life skills, problem solving, teaching, learning, education, lifelong learn-
ing)
• Professional life (work, teamwork, collaboration, economy, commerce, leadership,
decision making)
• Personal level (critical thinking, evaluation, analytical thinking, innovative thinking)

Discussion
This systematic review on digital literacy concentrated on forty-three articles from the
databases of WoS/Clarivate Analytics, Proquest Central, Emerald Management Jour-
nals, Jstor Business College Collections and Scopus/Elsevier. The initial results revealed
that there is an increasing trend on digital literacy focused academic papers. Research
work in digital literacy is critical in a context of disruptive digital business, and more
recently, the pandemic-triggered accelerated digitalisation (Beaunoyer, Dupéré & Guit-
ton, 2020; Sousa & Rocha 2019). Moreover, most of these papers were employing quali-
tative research methods. The raw data of these articles were analysed qualitatively using
systematic literature review to reveal major themes and categories. Four major themes
that appeared are: digital literacy, digital competencies, digital skills and thinking.
Whereas the mainstream literature describes digital literacy as a set of photo-visual,
real-time, information, branching, reproduction and social-emotional thinking (Eshet-
Alkalai, 2012) or as a set of precise specific operations, i.e., finding, consuming, creating,
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 12 of 18

communicating and sharing digital content (Heitin, 2016), this study reveals that digital
literacy revolves around and is in connection with the concepts of computer literacy,
media literacy, cultural literacy or disciplinary literacy. In other words, the present sys-
tematic review indicates that digital literacy is far broader than specific tasks, englobing
the entire sphere of computer operation and media use in a cultural context.
The digital competence yardstick, DigComp (Carretero, Vuorikari & Punie, 2017) sug-
gests that the main digital competencies cover information and data literacy, communi-
cation and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving. Similarly,
the findings of this research place digital competencies in relation to problem solving,
safety, information processing, content creation and communication. Therefore, the
findings of the systematic literature review are, to a large extent, in line with the existing
framework used in the European Union.
The investigation of the main keywords associated with digital skills has revealed
that information literacy, ICT, communication, collaboration, digital content creation,
research and decision-making skill are the most representative. In a structured way,
the existing literature groups these skills in technological, cognitive, and social (Ng,
2012) or, more extensively, into operational, formal, information Internet, strategic,
communication and content creation (van Dijk & van Deursen, 2014). In time, the lit-
erature has become richer in frameworks, and prolific authors have improved their
results. As such, more recent research (vaan Laar et al., 2017) use the following cat-
egories: technical, information management, communication, collaboration, creativity,
critical thinking, and problem solving.
Whereas digital thinking was observed to be mostly related with critical thinking
and computational thinking, DigComp connects it with critical thinking, creativity,
and innovation, on the one hand, and researchers highlight fake news, misinformation,
cybersecurity, and echo chambers as exponents of digital thinking, on the other hand
(Sulzer, 2018; Puig, Blanco-Anaya & Perez-Maceira, 2021).

Conclusion
This systematic review research study looks ahead to offer an initial step and guideline
for the development of a more contemporary digital literacy framework including digital
literacy major themes and factors. The researchers provide the following recommenda-
tions for both researchers and practitioners.

Recommendations for prospective research

By considering the major qualitative research trend, it seems apparent that more quan-
titative research-oriented studies are needed. Although it requires more effort and time,
mixed method studies will help understand digital literacy holistically.
As digital literacy is an umbrella term for many different technologies, specific case
studies need be designed, such as digital literacy for artificial intelligence or digital lit-
eracy for drones’ usage.
Digital literacy affects different areas of human lives, such as education, business,
health, governance, and so forth. Therefore, different case studies could be carried out
for each of these unique dimensions of our lives. For instance, it is worth investigating
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 13 of 18

the role of digital literacy on lifelong learning in particular, and on education in general,
as well as the digital upskilling effects on the labour market flexibility.
Further experimental studies on digital literacy are necessary to realize how certain
variables (for instance, age, gender, socioeconomic status, cognitive abilities, etc.) affect
this concept overtly or covertly. Moreover, the digital divide issue needs to be analysed
through the lens of its main determinants.
New bibliometric analysis method can be implemented on digital literacy documents
to reveal more information on how these works are related or centred on what major
topic. This visual approach will assist to realize the big picture within the digital literacy
framework.

Recommendations for practitioners

The digital literacy stakeholders, policymakers in education and managers in private
organizations, need to be aware that there are many dimensions and variables regard-
ing the implementation of digital literacy. In that case, stakeholders must comprehend
their beneficiaries or the participants more deeply to increase the effect of digital lit-
eracy related activities. For example, critical thinking and problem-solving skills and
abilities are mentioned to affect digital literacy. Hence, stakeholders have to initially
understand whether the participants have enough entry level critical thinking and
problem solving.
Development of digital literacy for different groups of people requires more energy,
since each group might require a different set of skills, abilities, or competencies. Hence,
different subject matter experts, such as technologists, instructional designers, content
experts, should join the team.
It is indispensably vital to develop different digital frameworks for different technol-
ogies (basic or advanced) or different contexts (different levels of schooling or various
industries).
These frameworks should be updated regularly as digital fields are evolving rapidly.
Every year, committees should gather around to understand new technological trends
and decide whether they should address the changes into their frameworks.
Understanding digital literacy in a thorough manner can enable decision makers to
correctly implement and apply policies addressing the digital divide that is reflected onto
various aspects of life, e.g., health, employment, education, especially in turbulent times
such as the COVID-19 pandemic is.
Lastly, it is also essential to state the study limitations. This study is limited to the
analysis of a certain number of papers, obtained from using the selected keywords and
databases. Therefore, an extension can be made by adding other keywords and searching
other databases.

Appendix A
See Table 9.
Table 9 List of papers (n = 43) included in the qualitative analysis—ordered alphabetically by title
# Author and year Title Journal/Book

1 Sulzer, M. A. (2018) (Re)conceptualizing digital literacies before and after the elec‑ English Teaching: Practice and Critique
tion of Trump
2 Gunduzalp, S. (2021) 21st Century Skills for Sustainable Education: Prediction Level Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education
of Teachers’ Information Literacy Skills on Their Digital Literacy
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments

Skills
3 Palts, T., Pedaste, M. (2020) A Model for Developing Computational Thinking Skills Informatics in Education
4 Starkey, L. (2020) A systematic review of research exploring teacher preparation Cambridge Journal of Education
for the digital age
5 Ozkan-Ozen, Y. D., Kazancoglu, Y. (2021) Analysing workforce development challenges in the Industry International Journal of Manpower
(2022) 9:21

4.0
6 Barna, C., Epure, M. (2020) Analyzing youth unemployment and digital literacy skills in Review of Applied Socio-Economic Research
romania in the context of the current digital transformation
7 Reis, D. A., Fleury, A. L., Carvalho, M. M. (2021) Consolidating core entrepreneurial competences: toward a International Journal of Enterpreneurial Behavior & Researh
meta-competence framework
8 van Laar, E., van Deursen, J. A. M., van Dijk, J. A. G. M., de Haan, Determinants of 21st-Century Skills and 21st-Century Digital SAGE Open
J. (2020) Skills for Workers: A Systematic Literature Review
9 Kim, M., Choi, D. (2018) Development of Youth Digital Citizenship Scale and Implica‑ Journal of Educational Technology & Society
tion for Educational Setting
10 Eyal, L. (2012) Digital Assessment Literacy — the Core Role of the Teacher in a Journal of Educational Technology & Society
Digital Environment
11 Spante, M., Hashemi, S. S., Lundin, M., Algers, A. (2018) Digital competence and digital literacy in higher education Cogent Education
research: Systematic review of concept use
12 Zhao, Y., Pinto Llorente, A. M., Cruz Sanchez Gomez, M. (2021) Digital competence in higher education research: A systematic Computers & Education
literature review
13 Batanero, J. M. F., Montenegro Rueda, M., Cerero, J. F., Garcia Digital competences for teacher professional development. European Journal of Teacher Education
Martinez, I. (2020) Systematic review
14 Murawski, M., Bick, M. (2017) Digital competences of the workforce – a research topic? Business Process Management Journal
15 Gibson, P. F., Smith, S. (2018) Digital literacies: preparing pupils and students for their infor‑ Information and Learning Science
mation journey in the twenty-first century
Page 14 of 18
Table 9 (continued)
# Author and year Title Journal/Book
16 Mcclurken, J., Boggs, J., Wadewitz, A., Geller, A. E., Beasley- Digital Literacy and the Undergraduate Curriculum Book: Hacking the Academy: New Approaches to Scholarship
Murray, J. (2013) and Teaching from Digital Humanities. The University of Michi‑
gan Press
17 Radovanovic, D., Holst, C., Belur, S. B., Srivastava, R., Houng‑ Digital Literacy Key Performance Indicators for Sustainable Social Inclusion
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments

bonon, G. V., Le Quentrec, E., Miliza, J., Winkler, A. S., Noll, J. Development
(2020)
18 Soomro, M. A., Hizam-Hanafiah, M., Abdullah, N. L. (2020) Digital readiness models: A systematic literature review Compusoft, An international journal of advanced computer
technology
19 Martinez-Bravo, M. C., Sadaba-Chalezquer, C., Serrano-Puche, J. Fifty years of digital literacy studies: A meta-research for inter‑ Profesional de la informacion
(2022) 9:21

(2020) disciplinary and conceptual convergence

20 Kolle, S. R. (2017) Global research on information literacy: a bibliometric analysis The Electronic Library
from 2005 to 2014
21 Dominguez Figaredo, D. (2017) Heuristics and Web Skills Acquisition in Open Learning Environ‑ Educational Technology & Society
ments
22 Bawden, D. (2001) Information and digital literacies: a review of concepts Journal of Documentation
23 Coklar, A. N., Yaman, N. D., Yurdakul, I. K. (2017) Information literacy and digital nativity as determinants of Computers in Human Behavior
online information search strategies
24 Fosmire, M. (2014) Information literacy and lifelong learning Book: Integrating Information into the Engineering Design
Process, Purdue University Press
25 Buschman, J. (2009) Information Literacy, “New” Literacies, and Literacy The Library Quarterly
26 Reis, C., Pessoa, T., Gallego-Arrufat, M. J. (2019) Literacy and digital competence in Higher Education: A sys‑ Revista de Docencia Universitaria
tematic review
27 Oh, S. S., Kim, K.-A., Kim, M., Oh, J., Chu, S. H., Choi, J. Y. (2021) Measurement of Digital Literacy Among Older Adults: System‑ Journal of Medical Internet Research
atic Review
28 Santandreu Calonge, D., Shah, M. A., Riggs, K., Connor, M. (2019) MOOCs and upskilling in Australia: A qualitative literature study Cogent Education
29 Mahiri, J. (2011) New literacies need new learning Book: Digital Tools in Urban Schools. Mediating a Remix of Learn‑
ing. The University of Michigan Press
30 Hicks, T., Hawley Turner, K. (2013) No Longer a Luxury: Digital Literacy Can’t Wait English Journal
31 Khuraisah, M. N., Khalid, F., Husnin, H. (2020) Preparing graduates with digital literacy skills toward fulfilling International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and
employability need in 4IR Era: A review Applications
Page 15 of 18
Table 9 (continued)
# Author and year Title Journal/Book
32 da Silva, C. R. S., Carvalho Teixeira, T. M., Bentes Pinto, V. (2019) Research methodology in information literacy: A systematic Digital Journal of Library and Information Science
review
33 Garcia-Perez, L., Garcia-Garnica, M., Olmedo-Moreno, E. M. Skills for a Working Future: How to Bring about Professional Education Sciences
(2021) Success from the Educational Setting
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments

34 Stordy, P. (2015) Taxonomy of literacies Journal of Documentation

35 Aesaert, K., Vanderlinde, R., Tondeur, J., van Braak, J. (2013) The content of educational technology curricula: a cross- Educational Technology Research and Development
curricular state of the art
36 de Greef, M., Segers, M., Nijhuis, J., Lam, J. F., van Groenestijn, M., The development and validation of testing materials for International Review of Education
van Hoek, F., van Deursen, A. J. A. M., Bohnenn, E., Tubbing, M. literacy, numeracy and digital skills in a Dutch context
(2022) 9:21

(2015)
37 Rodriguez-Garcia, A. M., Caceres Reche, M. P., Garcia, S. A. (2018) The digital competence of the future teacher: bibliometric International Journal of Educational Research and Innovation
analysis of scientific productivity indexed in Scopus
38 Sanchez-Caballe, A., Gisbert-Cervera, M., Esteve-Mon, F. (2020) The digital competence of university students: a systematic Aloma
literature review
39 Keshavarz, M. (2020) The effect of distance education on information literacy case The Quarterly Review of Distance Education
study: Iran
40 van Laar, E., van Deursen, J. A. M., van Dijk, J. A. G. M., de Haan, The relation between 21st-century skills and digital skills: A Computers in Human Behavior
J.(2017) systematic literature review
41 Esteban-Navarro, M. A., Garcia-Madurga, M. A., Morte-Nadal, T., The Rural Digital Divide in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic Informatics
Nogales-Bocio, A. I. (2020) in Europe—Recommendations from a Scoping Review
42 Rifai, I., Setiadi, C. J., Renaldo, J. Andreani, W. (2021) Toward society 5.0: Indonesia and Japan on the twenty-first IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science
century literacy skills
43 Kozanoglu, D. C., Abedin, B. (2020) Understanding the role of employees in digital transformation: Journal of Enterprise Information Management
conceptualization of digital literacy of employees as a multi-
dimensional organizational affordance
Page 16 of 18
Tinmaz et al. Smart Learning Environments (2022) 9:21 Page 17 of 18

Author contributions
The authors worked together on the manuscript equally. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding
This research is funded by Woosong University Academic Research in 2022.

Availability of data and materials

The authors present the articles used for the study in “Appendix A”.

Declarations
Competing of interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Received: 23 February 2022 Accepted: 1 June 2022

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