ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1548817
This article is part of the Research TopicAI Innovations in Education: Adaptive Learning and BeyondView all 10 articles
The impact of digital literacy on university students' innovation capability: evidence from Ningbo, China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
- 2School of Business, Ningbo Univesity, Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Digital literacy has become a necessary basic ability for university students and has profoundly influenced their learning attitudes and behaviour. This study aims to explore the direct effects of digital literacy on innovation capability among university students and whether it varies with students' personal characteristics. Methods: This study developed new scales to measure the digital literacy and innovation capability of university students. Data was collected from 12 universities in Ningbo, China (N=1334) through a self-report questionnaire and analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Results: The findings showed that digital literacy positively correlated with university students' innovation capability (β=0.76, p<0.001). Significant differences in digital literacy and innovation capability were found among university students with different educational backgrounds, academic disciplines, types of institutions, and training experiences, but no gender differences were observed. Discussion: University students with better digital literacy tend to be more innovative. The study suggests that higher education institutions should emerge from the traditional concept of curriculum systems, accelerate the construction of a digital literacy cultivation ecosystem considering different personal characteristics, and stimulate the innovation drive of university students.
Keywords: Digital Literacy, digital competence, Innovation capability, higher education, university students
Received: 20 Dec 2024; Accepted: 16 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Sun, Zhu, Feng, Sun and Zhong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dongdong Zhong, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.