AI Insight
This study examined how digital literacy influences academic innovation among 471 STEM undergraduate students in China, finding that the relationship operates through two parallel pathways: knowledge-sharing intention and creative self-efficacy. Both mediating pathways showed similar effect sizes and together accounted for 57% of the total effect, while digital literacy also had a significant direct effect on innovative behavior. The research demonstrates that both intentional knowledge-sharing behaviors and personal beliefs about creativity play important and independent roles in translating digital skills into academic innovation.
Why it matters
The findings suggest that effective digital literacy education for fostering innovation should address both students' motivation to share knowledge and their confidence in creative abilities, rather than focusing on technical skills alone. This dual-pathway framework provides practical guidance for universities designing programs to cultivate innovative thinking in STEM education.
Understand the Science
IntroductionWith the deep integration of digital technologies into higher education, digital literacy has become a key antecedent influencing college students’ academic innovative behavior, yet its underlying mechanism remains insufficiently explored. Unlike previous studies that have focused primarily on a single mediating pathway, this study draws on knowledge creation theory and social cognitive theory to propose a parallel mediation model, aiming to simultaneously examine the unique roles of the “intention-based pathway,” represented by knowledge-sharing intention, and the “belief pathway,” represented by creative self-efficacy, in the effect of digital literacy on academic innovative behavior among STEM students, thereby revealing its structural transformation mechanism.MethodsUsing stratified random sampling, this study selected 471 undergraduate students majoring in STEM disciplines from Xi’an University of Technology and employed structural equation modeling to analyze the data.ResultsThe results showed that (1) digital literacy was significantly and positively associated with knowledge-sharing intention and creative self-efficacy; (2) both knowledge-sharing intention and creative self-efficacy were significantly and positively associated with academic innovative behavior; and (3) both mediating pathways were significant and showed similar effect sizes, jointly accounting for 57% of the total effect, while the direct effect of digital literacy remained significant, indicating a partial mediating effect.DiscussionThis study offers a more nuanced theoretical framework for understanding the process through which digital literacy contributes to academic innovative behavior and provides empirical evidence for a dual-pathway approach to digital literacy education and innovation-oriented talent cultivation in higher education.