IT Humanities Education Program to Improve Digital Literacy of the Elderly

Abstract

Due to the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, more older people are exposed to Information Technology(IT) in their daily lives. However, due to the lack of digital literacy capabilities of the elderly, it is difficult to use digital devices, making it difficult to live. Therefore, this paper outlined the impact of the digital divide on daily life and the ability of the elderly to use digital information. Through this, we propose an educational program that combines IT and humanities to improve digital literacy in the elderly. IT and humanities do not seem to match, but the convergence of the two is essential. Hardware and software, technology and technology, technology and design are being combined. Accordingly, technology and humanities can combine competency is becoming more critical. Therefore, the educational program proposed in this thesis combines a decision tree with a game and allows the elderly to acquire IT knowledge while playing a game naturally. This educational program was conducted for 23 older adults in their 60s in J city, South Korea. The average satisfaction of the study participants in education was 4.13(±0.65). In addition, the post-test mean of the recognition area in digital literacy was 3.02(±0.64) (p<.05), and the post-test mean of the behavior area in digital literacy was 3.67(±0.59) (p<.01), which was statistically significant compared to the pre-test.