U.S. 8th graders’ digital literacy skills declined between 2018 and 2023 on the International Computer and Information Literacy Study, a global assessment of students’ preparedness for the digital world.
U.S. scores were on par with the international average for computer and information literacy, but they were below the international average for computational thinking, according to the National Center for Education Statistics analysis of the study, which included more than 2,300 students from 118 schools in the United States.
The study comes as young people are spending more time online and as the media landscape is becoming more complex. Generative artificial intelligence is making it even harder to tell what’s real and what’s not, and that’s why experts say it’s important for kids to learn how to think critically about all the information they’re being inundated with every day.
The average computer and information literacy score for U.S. students in 2023 was 482—a 37-point decline from 2018, when the average U.S. score was 519, according to the NCES. The international average in 2023 was 476. The assessment defines computer and information literacy as the ability “to use computers to investigate, create, and communicate in order to participate effectively at home, at school, in the workplace, and in society.”
For computational thinking, the average U.S. score in 2023 was 461, which is also a 37-point decline from the 2018 U.S average of 498, according to NCES. The international average in 2023 was 483. Computational thinking is defined as the ability “to evaluate and develop algorithmic solutions to [real-world] problems so that the solutions could be operationalized with a computer.”
The highest proficiency level starts at a score of 661 and can go up from there based on the difficulty level of the questions.
The results are “disappointing,” said NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr in a statement. “The results highlight the need for further inquiry and concentrated efforts to address the computer and informational literacy skills of our students—these skills are as fundamental as the 3 R’s [reading, writing, and arithmetic].”
The decline in scores in the assessments didn’t just happen in the United States. Average computer and information literacy scores were also lower in three other education systems: Denmark, Finland, and Germany. Average computational thinking scores also declined in Denmark and Germany.
Building digital literacy skills requires explicit teaching, not just tech time
While the COVID-19 pandemic led to an increase in students and educators using digital tools for teaching and learning, it did not translate to an increase in students’ digital literacy-related skills, according to the report.
“These are skills that likely require explicit teaching rather than passive exposure to technology in order to develop productively in most students,” the report said.
In the United States, there isn’t a national mandate to teach media/digital literacy skills to K-12 students, but more state legislatures are asking state boards of education to adopt or consider adopting media literacy education standards. As of December 2023, at least 18 governors had signed bills concerning K-12 media literacy or digital citizenship education, according to nonprofit advocacy group Media Literacy Now’s policy report.
Daniela DiGiacomo, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s School of Information Science, said she’s “not surprised” about the results.
“Until we make it a policy priority from a top-down perspective, as well as provide on-the-ground support for teachers, it won’t become ubiquitous or routine that students are getting these experiences,” DiGiacomo said.
U.S. students lag behind other countries in computational thinking
The same could be said for computational thinking—one of the pillars of computer science education, according to experts.
Teachers have a lot of pressure to teach the content that is tested, experts say, and because there’s often no mandate and no resources to teach media literacy and computer science, those topics get pushed aside, even if teachers think they’re important.
Comparing the United States with countries that have higher average computational thinking scores—such as South Korea, where the average score was 537 in 2023 and 536 in 2018—“it shows the difference between having a clear national mandate,” said Jake Baskin, the executive director of the Computer Science Teachers Association. There’s a “clear need to invest in rolling out computer science education across the K-12 grade span to keep up with our peers in other nations.”
More states are requiring students to take a foundational computer science class to graduate, according to Code.org’s annual report. In 2017, one state, Nevada, had enacted a requirement. Now, 10 more states are in the process of implementing new requirements.
“We’ve seen really tremendous growth in the number of schools that are offering computer science and an outstanding surge of teachers that have raised their hand and said, ‘I know this is important for my students and I want to learn with them and figure out how to bring this content into my classroom,’” Baskin said. But we “have a long ways to go.”
