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Psychological-Educational Studies
2025. Vol. 17, no. 3, 149–163
doi:10.17759/psyedu.2025170309
ISSN: 2587-6139 (online)

Digital literacy of Russian teenagers in the youth digital skills indicator (yDSI) model

 
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Abstract

Context and relevance. Many researchers associate the success of the socialization of modern adolescents with the formation of digital competence, defining its status as universal and the most important in the 21st century. Digital literacy (DL) can be considered as a basic segment of digital competence and is a set of skills necessary when using digital technologies to solve vital tasks. Objective. The aim of the study was to investigate the digital literacy (DL) of Russian adolescents based on the youth Digital Skills Indicator (yDSI) model to identify strategies for the development of adolescents' digital competence. The aim of the study was to study the digital literacy (DL) of Russian adolescents based on the youth Digital Skills Indicator (yDSI) model to determine strategies for developing digital competence among adolescents. The study sample consisted of 1519 adolescents aged 12–18 (M = 15,37, SD = 1,14). There were 602 boys (39,6%) and 917 girls (60,4%). All respondents were students in grades 6–11 in general education schools, of which 1060 (69,8%) were urban students and 458 (30,2%) were rural students. Methods and materials. To assess digital literacy, a version of the yDSI questionnaire was used, which included the scales "Technical and Operational Skills", "Programming Skills", "Navigation and Information Processing Skills", "Communication and Interaction Skills", "Content creation and production Skills". The results of an empirical study of 1519 respondents showed the specific features of Russian adolescents' DL development (M = 15,37, SD = 1,14; boys, 39,6%, girls, 60,4%; students of urban (69,8%) and rural (30,2%) schools). 13,5% of Russian adolescents have a high level of development of all groups of skills included in the DL structure. Content production and creation skills and communication and interaction skills are the most developed; programming skills are the least developed. All skills in the DL structure are interrelated, forming an integral DL indicator. The level of DL increases with the age of the adolescent and is significantly higher in adolescents who live and study in cities. Two groups of skills depend on the gender of adolescents: boys have better programming skills and girls have better communication and collaboration skills. Functional and critical literacy are related to the characteristics of age and place of residence: values are higher in older adolescents and in urban adolescents. In addition, critical literacy is higher in adolescent girls. Conclusions. The results show the possibility of using the yDSI model to assess the DL of Russian adolescents and the need for targeted formation of DL in the educational process. Deficiencies in adolescents' DL development determine the nature of educational tasks and the importance of understanding gender, age and social characteristics of adolescents in the organisation of the educational process for mastering digital technologies.

General Information

Keywords: digital literacy, Russian adolescents, yDSI model

Journal rubric: Methodology and Technology of Education

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/psyedu.2025170309

Supplemental data. The data is available at the address of affiliated organizations. To participate in the study, respondents received a link to the survey page in the testograf.ru system. 

Received 16.06.2025

Revised 01.08.2025

Accepted

Published

For citation: Volkova, E.N., Sorokoumova, G.v. (2025). Digital literacy of Russian teenagers in the youth digital skills indicator (yDSI) model. Psychological-Educational Studies, 17(3), 149–163. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/psyedu.2025170309

© Volkova E.N., Sorokoumova G.v., 2025

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Elena N. Volkova, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Leading Researcher, Laboratory of child psychology and digital socialization, Federal Scientific Center for Psychological and Interdisciplinary Research, Moscow, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9667-4752, e-mail: envolkova@yandex.ru

Galina v. Sorokoumova, Doctor of Psychology, Professor of the Department of Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages, Pedagogy and Psychology, Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubov, Nizhniy Novgorod, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5246-5200, e-mail: galsors@mail.ru

Contribution of the authors

Elena N. Volkova — ideas; annotation, writing and design of the manuscript; planning of the research; control over the research.

Galina V. Sorokoumova — application of mathematical methods for data analysis; conducting the experiment; data collection and analysis.

All authors participated in the discussion of the results and approved the final text of the manuscript. 

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethics statement

The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Commission of Federal Scientific Center for Psychological and Interdisciplinary Research (report no 5, 2025.01.31).

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