Understanding the Intersections of Faculty Literacy, Institutional Support & Perspectives on Digital Immigration: Impacts on Curricular and Student Development

This presentation will share the findings of a mixed methods study of faculty who teach across BSW, MSW and DSW curriculum at a mid-size, regional, public institution which explored the intersection of digital literacy, digital immigration and related influences on curricular development and impact on students. Full and part-time social work faculty were compared using the Digital Natives Assessment Scale (Teo, 2013), the Technology Self-Efficacy Scale (Kent & Giles, 2017), and semi-structured interviews that focuses on translation of digital literacy and self-efficacy to online and hybrid setting. Findings revealed that faculty confidence levels often exceeded actual technology efficacy both in fully online and hybrid settings, that faculty prefer informal training methods from sources outside the institution to learn how to develop and strengthen technological skills and highlighted significant gaps between trainings offered and faculty and student needs. Implications for improved offerings of faculty trainings and improvements to technology-based social work curricular development will be discussed.