Effectiveness of Digital Literacy Training to Improve Early Childhood Education Teacher’s Competence

Abstract

In the digital era, students are interested to use computers in their learning activities. To fulfil this need, teachers need to improve their digital literacy competencies to enable them to seize the digital media for teaching and learning activities. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of digital literacy training in improving teachers’ competence of Early Childhood Education in Pontianak City, West Kalimantan Province. Their digital literacy competencies cover their ability to use digital media, search for information sources via the internet, deal with hypertext guidance, evaluate information content and prepare online-based knowledge. The training was carried out for 2 days and it delivered task "Project Teaching" for the trainees. This study used a pre-experimental method with One Groups Pretest-Posttest Design. The sample used was 55 teachers from various regions in the city of Pontianak by using purposive sampling technique. Data were collected using techniques like interviews, observation and pretest-posttest. The data were analyzed by applying quantitative approach, namely the inferential statistical test assisted by SPSS 25. The results showed that the average pre-test score was 46.27 and the post-test average score was 88.91. The results shows that digital literacy training is effective in improving the teachers’ competence. The effectiveness of this digital literacy training is supported by the available facilities and infrastructure and support from their respective institutions.