Digital divide among higher education faculty

Kamal Ahmed Soomro, Ugur Kale, Reagan Curtis, Mete Akcaoglu, Malayna Bernstein

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

112 Scopus citations

Abstract

Digital divide centers on access to various dimensions of information and communication technology (ICT) including physical access, motivation, skills, and actual usage of digital technologies. This divide tends to be even wider in the context of developing countries. Yet, there is a lack of literature on the digital divide among the faculty who teach in higher education settings. Thus, as a preliminary effort, by using a 57-item Faculty’s ICT Access (FICTA) scale, we investigated the digital inequalities (at the physical, motivational, skills, and usage levels) among Pakistani faculty in respect of their personal and positional categories. We also examined the relationship between faculty’s instructional usage of ICT and other dimensions of their ICT access. The findings revealed that there were significant differences in the faculty’s access to technology at the four levels in respect of their personal and positional categories. Further, the findings of the study shed light on the theoretical implications of the framework of successive kinds of ICT access suggested by van Dijk (The deepening divide: inequality in the information society, 2005).

Original languageEnglish
Article number21
JournalInternational Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education
Volume17
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2020

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Education
  • Computer Science Applications

Keywords

  • Access to technology
  • Digital divide
  • Digital equity
  • Faculty
  • ICT

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