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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
ISSN: 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS
Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
Digital Skill Related Problems among Digital Natives in a Malaysian
Public University
*
Nurul Emyza Zahidi., Bushra Abdul Halim., Siti Nursyahira Zainudin., Siti Ramizah Jama., Nordianah
Jusoh @ Hussain., Siti Fairus Fuzi., Wan Hartini Wan Hassan
Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Teknologi MARA Melaka
*Corresponding Author
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.924ILEIID0093
Received: 23 September 2025; Accepted: 30 September 2025; Published: 01 November 2025
ABSTRACT
Nowadays, university students are often considered digital natives, but many still encounter digital skill-related
problems, particularly in technical use, information management, and learning strategies. These challenges
may affect their academic performance and engagement in technology-based learning. Addressing this issue is
crucial for universities to design affective interventions and training programs that enhance student’ digital
competencies. Hence, this paper examines the digital skills related problems experienced by digital native
generation when using information and communication technology (ICT) and to identify the difference
between students with and without digital skill-related problems in terms of their digital skills. This study
investigates the digital skills related problems experienced by digital natives in a Malaysian public university.
Using a cross- sectional survey of 351 students aged 18–26 years, the study examined four categories of digital
skills: operational, formal, informational, and strategic. Results revealed that formal skill- related problems
were most common (58.4%), followed by informational (44.2%), operational (39.9%), and strategic (35.9%)
skill-related problems. Specific difficulties included transferring files between devices, uploading and
downloading data, synthesizing online information, and creating or editing text files. The findings highlight
that despite being digital natives, students continue to face challenges in essential and advanced digital skills,
underscoring the need for targeted digital literacy training in higher education.
Keywords: digital skills, operational skills, informational skills, digital native generation.
INTRODUCTION
The rapid advancement of digital technologies into our daily lives required situations that needed well-versed
digital skills among the people. The well-versed digital skills are most needed specifically among digital
natives because they are the legacy generation in the future. Prensky (2001) who first proposed the concept
of ‘digital natives’ as a generation of people born in or after 1980. Common characteristics of digital natives
as described by Prensky (2001) are people who lived their lives in with digital technologies, have a culture of
connectivity and online creating and sharing, have e-lives that revolve around the internet by accessing
information and interact with others like blogging, playing online games, downloading music, purchasing and
selling online, and socializing via social media networks, like to receive information quickly, and they are
multi-taskers, parallel processers, and prefer graphics first over texts.
Digital skills play a vital role in promoting information and communication technology (ICT) access which
can reduce digital divide among the people (Maji and Laha, 2022). Moreover, the possession of high levels of
digital skill is strongly related to engagement in technology-enhanced learning (Bergdahl et. al, 2020). This
view supported by Ben Youssef et. al (2022) found that students’ academic performance increases with the
increased acquisition of digital skills. Despite digital skills that digital natives have, they must experience
some related problems in digital skills that must be identified and addressed. Very few empirical research that
dwell into digital skills related problems either actual levels of digital skills related problems or perceived
levels of digital skills related problems among digital natives. Some studies that dwell into digital skills related
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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
ISSN: 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS
Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
problems include Dutch internet users aged between 18-80 years’ old who were investigated by Van Deursen
and Van Dijk (2009), where the practical contribution of individual skill related problems was identified when
users navigated the internet. A performance test was conducted by Deursen and Diepen (2013) to investigate
the information and strategic internet skills related problems of Dutch secondary schools’ students, and the
digital skills related problems among Dutch primary school children were studied by Van Deursen et al. (2014)
Gómez (2018) in his study concludes that, even among young people who frequently use digital technologies,
there are important asymmetries and barriers in access, skills, motivation, and emotions that limit the utility
they can get from them, and these are related to their socio-cultural background and their personal processes of
technological socialization. As the legacy generation in the future, digital natives must possess sufficient and
good to excellent digital skills. Therefore, it is important to identify their digital skills related problems so that
these problems can be addressed cautiously and effectively. The self-reported or perceived digital skills related
problems on a sample of the digital natives in Malaysia were used in this study. Four digital skills including
operational skills, formal skills, informational skills, and strategic skills, proposed by Van Dijk (2006) were
used in this present study. According to Van Dijk (2006), operational and formal skills are fundamental digital
skills while informational and strategic skills are advanced digital skills. Numerous earlier research explored
digital skills and the impacts on digital usage but limited research that studied the related problems on digital
skills that impacted academic digital usage and general digital usage specifically among university students.
Limited research also noticeable that studied on potential predictors that influenced digital skills related
problems.
Research Questions
i. What types of digital skill-related problems are experienced by digital natives?
ii. How do students with digital skill-related problems differ from those without such problems in terms of
their digital skills?
LITERATURE REVIEW
With the advent of technologies, digital divide continues to exist in digital skills as reported by Van Dijk
(2006), Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2009), and Nor Fazlin et al (2023). In the early 21
st
century, Van Deursen
et al (2014) on operational, formal, informational, and strategic skills as the dimensions of digital skills. In
later years of 21
st
century, dimensions of digital skills are extended to social, creative, and mobile skills
(Ahmad et al, 2019), creativity and innovation, critical thinking, communication and collaboration skills (Nor
Fazlin et al, 2023 and Tee et al, 2024), and much more recently digital skills that include information and data
literacy, problem-solving, and digital content creation skills which are needed in the job sectors.
Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2009) found that the major operational problems were saving files or PDF
documents and the use of search engines as instruments of support while the most frequently experienced
problem for individual formal skill problems, was the lack of orientation when navigating between websites,
within websites, and between search results. A major information skill related problem seems to be the
formulation of unsuitable or overly general search queries and the lack of knowledge about employing
Booleans while for strategic skill related problems, it was revealed that the use of websites that support users
in making informed decisions (e.g., voting) only caused more new problems and that subjects had trouble
keeping their focus on the original goal of the assignment. Another study by [6] revealed that among the most
important specific information and strategic skills related to problems the Dutch secondary school students
experienced were defining proper search queries, evaluating the information found, maintaining focus, and
taking the appropriate steps to reach the final goal.
METHODOLOGY
A cross-sectional survey design was employed. Participants were 351 students aged 18 – 26 years from
management sciences, social sciences and humanities, and computer science disciplines at a Malaysian public
university. Data were collected via an online questionnaire. The instrument included items measuring
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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
ISSN: 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS
Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
operational, formal, informational, and strategic digital skills, adapted from Soomro et. al (2018) and Soomro
et. al (2020). Responses were rated on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
Mean scores below the overall average digital skills score (3.97) were coded as indicating skill - related
problems. Descriptive statistics and one-sample t-tests were used to identify the prevalence of problems.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Types of digital skill-related problems experienced by digital natives.
Digital skills studied were operational skills, formal skills, informational skills, and strategic skills. The present
study first examined the digital skills related problems experienced by students. This was examined by
analysing the mean scores of individual digital skills that were below the overall mean score of digital skills.
The overall mean score of digital skills is 3.97 (SD = 0.633) ranging from 1.10 to 5.00. In addressing research
question 1, one sample t test was performed. Using this statistical test, the mean values of individual digital
skills were compared with the overall mean score of digital skills. Negative t value means the individual mean
score of digital skill is below the overall mean value (there are digital skill related problems) while the positive
t value means the individual mean score is above the overall mean value (there are no digital skill related
problems) experienced by students.
Results revealed that students had significant related problems in formal skills including 52.1% students had
problems in transferring files from a hard disk to a USB flash drive and vice versa (t = -8.231, p < 0.001),
43.6% experienced related problems in uploading data or a file from the computer to somewhere on the
internet (t = -5.539, p < 0.001), and 39% had related problems in downloading program from the internet (t = -
3.639, p < 0.001). Approximately 39% students had related problems in informational skill such as
synthesizing online information (t = -2.854, p < 0.01) and 35.3% had problems in operational skill such as
creating and editing a text file in a word processing program (t = -2.717, p < 0.01). Students perceived that
they had no significant related problems in strategic skills. The digital skills related problems were significant
in overall formal skills (t = -7.101, p < 0.001) but not in other types of digital skills indicating that students had
related problems in formal skills. Results also revealed that students had related problems in informational
skills but the problems were not that significant. Results indicate the related problems occurred often in
formal skills, followed by informational skills, operational skills, and lastly strategic skills. Results are
displayed in Table 1.
Table 1 Descriptive and inferential statistics of digital skills related problems
Digital skills items
No. of
students
%
Mean
Min
Max
T (Test value =
3.97)
Creating and editing a text file in a
word processing program
124
35.3
3.83
1.00
5.00
-2.717
**
Create a computer presentation
102
29.1
4.05
1.00
5.00
1.698
Change some basic computer
settings (wallpaper, time/date,
sounds, etc.)
71
20.2
4.23
1.00
5.00
5.675
***
Save images and text from the
website on hard disk
125
35.6
3.92
1.00
5.00
-1.053
Send an attachment to an email
81
23.1
4.13
1.00
5.00
3.527
***
Total
140
39.9
4.03
1.00
5.00
1.676
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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
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Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
Download programs from the
internet
137
39.0
3.79
1.00
5.00
-3.639
***
Upload data or a file from the
computer to somewhere on the
Internet
153
43.6
3.69
1.00
5.00
-5.539
***
Transferring files from a hard disk
to a USB flash drive and vice versa
183
52.1
3.51
1.00
5.00
-8.231
***
Total
205
58.4
3.66
1.33
5.00
-7.101
***
Know what search terms to use
when searching the internet
112
31.9
3.94
1.00
5.00
-0.597
Use advanced search options to
reach the required information
118
33.6
3.91
1.00
5.00
-1.221
Evaluate the sources of the
information found on the internet
121
34.5
3.89
1.00
5.00
-1.668
Comfortable synthesizing online
information
136
38.7
3.84
1.00
5.00
-2.854
**
Total
155
44.2
3.90
1.25
5.00
-1.807
Retrieve a website on the internet
106
30.2
3.93
1.00
5.00
-0.478
Easily choose from search results
81
23.1
4.13
1.00
5.00
3.618
***
Make a choice by consulting the
internet
96
27.4
4.01
1.00
5.00
0.893
Reach the intended goal while
using the internet
95
27.1
4.01
1.00
5.00
0.945
Easy to work towards a specific
goal on the internet
86
24.5
4.07
1.00
5.00
2.405
*
Gain benefits from using the
computer and the internet
67
19.1
4.21
1.00
5.00
5.819
***
Achieve the goals by using various
digital technologies
91
25.9
4.03
1.00
5.00
1.353
Confident in making important
decisions with the help of the
internet
91
25.9
4.06
1.00
5.00
1.973
*
Total
126
35.9
4.06
1.00
5.00
2.426
*
*
p < 0.05
**
p < 0.01
***
p < 0.001
For the first category of digital skills which is formal skills, the analysis presented in figure 1 revealed that
58.4% of students reported difficulties, particularly in transferring files between devices (52.1%), uploading
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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
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Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
data to the internet (43.6%), and downloading programs (39%). Meanwhile, for category informational skills
44.2% of students reported difficulties with common problems including synthesizing online information
(38.7%) and evaluating information sources (34.5%). For operational skills, 39.9% students had issues, such as
creating or editing text files (35.3%) and saving online content (35.6%). Lastly, strategic skills, 35.9% of
students experienced problems such as notably retrieving websites (30.2%). Overall, formal skill-related
problems were the most prevalent, while strategic skill-related problems were the least.
Figure 1 Proportion of students with ten most related problems in digital skills
The differences between students who experience digital skill-related problems and those who do not.
To address research question 2, first, the calculated mean score for each type of digital skill and using the
overall mean score of 3.97 as cut-off point, the mean score of the individual student for each type of digital
skill was recoded as 0 – no digital skills related problems (calculated mean below 3.97) and 1 – with digital
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ILEIID 2025 | International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS)
ISSN: 2454-6186 | DOI: 10.47772/IJRISS
Special Issue | Volume IX Issue XXIV October 2025
skills related problems (calculated mean 3.97 or above). Figure 2 shows 58.4% students had the highest
formal skills related problems, followed by 44.2% students had informational skills related problems, then
39.9% students had operational skills related problems, and 35.9% students had the least related problems in
strategic skills. Figure 2 illustrates the results.
Figure 2 Proportion of students with and without digital skills related problems
Findings challenge the assumption that digital natives possess advanced digital competencies. Despite growing
up with technology, students reported persistent problems in both basic and advanced digital tasks. Formal
skill-related problems were particularly common, suggesting a lack of confidence in file management and
internet-based operations. Similarly, difficulties in synthesizing and evaluating online information highlight
gaps in higher-order digital literacy. These findings align with international studies by Van Deursen and Van
Dijk (2009), and Deursen and Diepen (2013) that emphasize the persistence of skill-related challenges even
among young, tech-savvy users.
In the Malaysian context, despite near-universal internet access, the existence of such problems suggests that
digital fluency cannot be assumed solely based on device ownership or exposure. Structured interventions,
such as digital literacy courses and workshops, are necessary to bridge these gaps and better prepare students
for academic and professional tasks.
CONCLUSION
This study demonstrates that Malaysian digital natives continue to face challenges in all four categories of
digital skills, with formal skills emerging as the most problematic. Universities should prioritize digital literacy
training that addresses both basic and advanced skills, focusing particularly on file management, information
evaluation, and information synthesis. Such initiatives are vital not only for improving students’ academic
performance but also for enhancing their ability to navigate the digital world effectively. Future research could
explore the difference of socio-demographic and the types of digital skills related problems predict academic
digital usage and general usage.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Cawangan Melaka for supporting this
article.
60.1
41.6
55.8
64.1
39.9
58.4
44.2
35.9
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Operational skill Formal skill Informational skill Strategic skill
%
No digital skills related problems With digital skills related problems
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