Education’s role in supporting children and young people’s digital competencies
Why is this research needed?
Children as young as 5 years old, now have regular access to the online digital world and are big consumers of social networks (OFCOM, 2024). There are concerns globally about whether our children and young people have the necessary understanding and skills to be in this space safely.
The research being undertaken is taking an asset-based, developmental approach to consider the digital competencies that children and young people need to be online safely and in an empowered way. This part of the research is considering what we are can do in education to support the development of these skills for children and young people. This includes thinking about whether we, as adults and educators, have these skills and how confident we feel teaching them 😊
This video describes how you can be involved in the research:
Participant Information Sheet:
How can I get involved?
All involvement is completely voluntary and results are anonymous.
There are facilitated research sessions for national curriculum networks taking place throughout September 2025. However if you are not part of the networks but would like to take part or can’t make these sessions, please find a link to the survey below. The survey takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. You can withdraw from completing the survey at any time.
What’s in it for me?
Following your completion of the survey, there is a debriefing sheet which will give you access to the assessments used in the survey to assess misinformation susceptibility, manipulative information susceptibility and critical reflection test.
You will also be adding to the Scottish research base. During my scoping review, there was only 1 peer reviewed Scottish article found!!! We need our work in this area to be based in evidence rather than anecdotes so please add your voice to this research base.
Thank you for your support and if there is anything that you wish to discuss further, please don’t hesitate to contact me:
