Digital literacy among entrepreneurial women in the EU
German de Turowski, Attabeira (2024)
2024
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202503194563
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202503194563
Tiivistelmä
Digital literacy (Glister 1997) offers entrepreneurial women the possibility to participate in bigger business endeavors by utilizing new technologies and tools. This study takes a look into the challenges entrepreneurial women face when learning to use different digital tools. This studies also tried to understand the way that age and industry influence that learning process so that it can come up with sustainable strategies to enhance these women’s digital literacy skills and capabilities.
The research focuses on 20 entrepreneurial women aged 30-59 across the European Union. These women represent a variety of industries such as education, hospitality, and creative sectors.The study uses qualitative research, including the phenomenographic approach, in order to identify recurring themes across ages and industries. The thematic analysis was conducted via semi structured interviews which later were taken through phenomenographic mapping in order to identify variations in their experiences with digital literacy.
The study found key challenges exposed such as lack of time, lack of confidence, the complexity of digital tools and a need for tailored resources. Age influenced learning preferences and it found that younger women favored independent learning and trial and error approaches. Middle aged participants prioritized problem solving as opposed to learning things progressively from beginning to end. Finally, older people opted for guided learning. Industry type also influenced these challenges showing that more visually oriented businesses such as creative and hospitality relied heavily on social media tools while others such as retail focused heavily on e-commerce platforms.
The study focused on educational theories such as the Zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) and Andragogy (Knowles, 1973) to suggest educational frameworks that better cater to the specific learning preferences of each group. This research sheds a light in the importance of empowering entrepreneurial women to help them thrive in a fast changing digital literacy landscape. Future studies could expand on this work by seeking quantitative validation in order to confirm the findings that were discussed here.
The research focuses on 20 entrepreneurial women aged 30-59 across the European Union. These women represent a variety of industries such as education, hospitality, and creative sectors.The study uses qualitative research, including the phenomenographic approach, in order to identify recurring themes across ages and industries. The thematic analysis was conducted via semi structured interviews which later were taken through phenomenographic mapping in order to identify variations in their experiences with digital literacy.
The study found key challenges exposed such as lack of time, lack of confidence, the complexity of digital tools and a need for tailored resources. Age influenced learning preferences and it found that younger women favored independent learning and trial and error approaches. Middle aged participants prioritized problem solving as opposed to learning things progressively from beginning to end. Finally, older people opted for guided learning. Industry type also influenced these challenges showing that more visually oriented businesses such as creative and hospitality relied heavily on social media tools while others such as retail focused heavily on e-commerce platforms.
The study focused on educational theories such as the Zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) and Andragogy (Knowles, 1973) to suggest educational frameworks that better cater to the specific learning preferences of each group. This research sheds a light in the importance of empowering entrepreneurial women to help them thrive in a fast changing digital literacy landscape. Future studies could expand on this work by seeking quantitative validation in order to confirm the findings that were discussed here.