Recommendations on Assessment Tools for Monitoring Digital Literacy within UNESCO’s Digital Literacy Global Framework

This report summarises a desk research project that aims to advise the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in designing an instrument for the assessment of digital literacy skills in the context of collecting data on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 4.4.2:

• Percentage of youth/adults who have achieved at least a minimum level of proficiency in digital literacy skills

Currently, there are no standardised instruments for monitoring the SDG digital literacy indicator in accordance with UNESCO's Digital Literacy Global Framework. This report draws on an analysis of alternative methodological approaches and existing instruments for assessing digital literacy skills to recommend a suitable solution to measuring a minimum of digital literacy skills.

 Some of the recommendations highlighted in the report include:

• Eurostat’s Digital Skills Indicator survey is the easiest tool to adapt to meet minimum needs in assessing digital literacy.
• The EU’s DigComp assessment undertaken in Estonia offers the widest coverage of competences covered in the Global Framework, with automatically scored items and both self-reporting and knowledge-based tests.
• The PIX test (pix.fr) is the best existing, open-source platform that can be adapted to assess competencies covered in the Framework.
• The Digital Competence Wheel in Denmark provides the most user-friendly, visually-attractive interface, but it is based on self-reporting only.

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Recommendations on Assessment Tools for Monitoring Digital Literacy within UNESCO’s Digital Literacy Global Framework. Information Paper No. 56 January 2019 UIS/2019/LO/IP/56

Montreal, UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2019.