Defining and Transferring Digital Literacies: What Does this Mean for High School and College Educators?

Authors

Jocelyn Spoor, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

First Advisor

Rachael Shah

Date of this Version

5-2023

Document Type

Article

Citation

Spoor, Jocelyn. "Defining and Transferring Digital Literacies: What Does this Mean for High School and College Educators?" Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research: Department of English.

Comments

A THESIS Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts, Major: English, Under the Supervision of Professor Rachael Shah. Lincoln, Nebraska: May, 2023

Copyright © 2023 Jocelyn Spoor

Abstract

This thesis aims to create a digital literacies transfer framework through a discussion regarding current conversations on transfer and digital literacies in the English field, including synthesizing the two ideas to think about the transfer of digital literacies as a concept. This digital literacies framework is made up of five components: the functional skills, critical skills, and rhetorical skills found in digital literacies scholarship and the genre awareness and meta-cognitive ideas found in transfer literature. This digital literacies transfer framework is then used to analyze information gleaned from four college and five high school English educators. The key findings from these interviews are integrated into the current conversation around digital literacies and transfer through the digital literacies transfer framework to think about how educators teach digital literacies and the implications of this teaching in terms of transferability. Finally, this thesis concludes with a discussion of how this research might call for change in how high school and college English educators are supported for promoting digital literacy transfer in their classrooms.

Advisor: Rachael Shah