Modeling the influences of upper-elementary school students’ digital reading literacy, socioeconomic factors, and self-regulated learning strategies

Abstract

Background: Reading is an interactive and constructive process of making meaning by engaging a variety of materials and sources and by participating in reading communities at school or in daily life.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting digital reading literacy among upper-elementary school students.

Method: A 3-stage stratified cluster sampling was implemented that resulted in a sample of 592 upper-elementary students from 29 classes in 7 schools. Self-Regulated Learning Strategies Assessment (S-RLSA), Digital Reading Literacy Assessment (DRLA), and student reports of their parents’ education backgrounds were used to collect data on the outcome and predictor variables. Interpretation of these data involved two highly regarded statistical techniques. First, structural equation modeling was used to explore relationships amongst the constructs. Second, multi-group invariance (MI) analyses were used to assess the influence of parental education and self-regulated learning strategies on students’ digital reading literacy.

Results: Enriching students’ family learning resources and strengthening their self-regulated learning abilities could have very important influences on promoting upper-elementary school students' digital reading literacy -webpage information retrieval, reading and communication abilities.

Conclusions: This study also provides information on how teachers can address student resources to improve digital reading literacy and self-regulated strategies.

Keywords:

• Digital reading literacy
• self-regulated learning
• structural equation modeling

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge and express appreciation to Professor Larry Yore (University of Victoria) and Mrs. Shari Yore for their mentoring assistance in relation to this article.