THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIGITAL LITERACY PROGRAMS IN BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE (AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY AT THE TENTH GRADERS OF MAN 1 KOTA PEKALONGAN IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2025/2026)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23969/jp.v11i03.62147Keywords:
Digital Literacy, Digital Divide, Digital Literacy ProgramAbstract
The digital divide remains a significant challenge in education, as unequal digital competencies can limit students' participation in technology-supported learning. Digital literacy programs have been widely recognized as a potential strategy to reduce this gap by strengthening students' abilities to access, evaluate, create, and communicate information using digital technologies. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of a digital literacy program in bridging the digital divide among tenth-grade students at MAN 1 Kota Pekalongan during the 2025/2026 academic year. A quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group was employed involving 30 students, consisting of 15 students in the experimental group and 15 students in the control group. The experimental group participated in digital literacy activities through Google Meet, Canva, and Padlet, while the control group received conventional online instruction using the same learning materials. Data were collected through pre-test and post-test assessments and analyzed using the Shapiro–Wilk test, Levene's test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The Mann–Whitney U test indicated a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups (U = 179.500, p = .005). However, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed no statistically significant improvement within either the experimental group (p = .083) or the control group (p = .286). These findings suggest that the digital literacy program contributed to differences in digital literacy outcomes between the two groups, although it did not produce statistically significant improvements within the experimental group. The study highlights the potential of structured digital literacy programs as an educational approach to addressing the digital divide while emphasizing the need for longer intervention periods and broader participant samples in future research.
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