Digital technologies fundamentally transform teaching and learning in higher education environments, with the pace of technological change exacerbating the challenge. Due to the current pandemic situation, higher education environments are all now forced to move away from traditional teaching and learning structures that are simply no longer adaptable to the challenges of rapidly changing educational environments. This research develops a conceptual model and employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial least Squares (PLS) to examine the impact of information and digital literacy on 249 Finnish university staff and students’ intention to use digital technologies. The findings show the complex interrelationship between literacy skills and digital technologies among university staff and students. The results illustrate that information literacy has a direct and significant impact on intention to use; while, unlike our expectation, digital literacy does not have a direct impact on the intention to use. However, its effect is mediated through performance expectancy and effort expectancy. The authors suggest that to understand the changes that are taking place in higher education environment, more attention needs to be paid to redefining policies and strategies in order to enhance individuals’ willingness to use digital technologies within higher education environments.

Information and communications technology (ICT) and digital technologies are being actively used for education, and the ICT-enabled education market continues to grow. The recent COVID-19 pandemic situation is undoubtedly very stressful, because all teaching and learning activities have been forced to move online. This is an international comparative study examining the effects of 21st century skills (e.g., digital and information literacy) on intention to use digital technologies for learning in Korea and in Finland. To conduct a rigorous comparison of the two countries, this paper conducts an empirical study on 194 Korean and 192 Finnish young people in their 20s and 30s. A theory-based conceptual model is devised to examine the differences between Korean and Finnish respondents’ ICT usage using Structural equation modelling (SEM). The SEM results showed that information literacy has a direct effect on the intention to use digital technologies for learning in Korea and Finland. The higher information literacy is directly related to higher intention to use digital technology for learning with a small effect. The effect of digital literacy on intention to use technologies is fully mediated through the habit and performance expectancy with a medium effect. In addition, this study used multigroup analysis (MGA) to examine whether the impact of digital literacy and information literacy on intention to use digital technology for learning differed between Korean and Finnish respondents. Based on these results, recommendations for prospect research and theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Educational environments, such as universities, have been deeply affected by technologically driven change. In fact, educational technologies are becoming progressively common, and scholars have stated that there is an expectation for these technologies to be a part of formal learning environments. Hence, university staff are expected to use digital technologies in their work activities. These expectations, however, rely on university staff's capabilities to use such technologies, thus highlighting the importance of literacy skills. This paper aims to explore the impact of information literacy (IL) and digital literacy (DL) on university staff's intention to use digital technologies in their work activities. To support this aim, a conceptual model is composed of constructs such as performance expectancy, effort expectancy and habit from the UTAUT2 framework, while incorporating the dimensions of information literacy and digital literacy. The conceptual model is then assessed with data obtained from 100 university employees thorough partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate there is a direct and significant relationship between information literacy and intention to use digital technologies, whereas the relationship between digital literacy and intention to use is mediated through performance expectancy and habit. Furthermore, performance expectancy and habit possess a direct impact on intention to use technology.

Digitalisation impacts in the higher education environment and specifically on using digital technologies for learning purposes has increasingly changed such activities. In an informationbased society, where individuals are overloaded with the sheer amount of information and digital tools and devices, literacy skills of an individual play an important role in how activities are being executed. In this paper, we aim to investigate how information and digital literacy of university students impact their decisions to use digital technology for learning. As such, an extension of the UTAUT model is applied on a dataset comprising of 194 and 192 young Korean and Finnish people in their 20s and 30s. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) results show distinct differences between young Korean and Finnish people in multiple path relationships. For example, while digital literacy has no direct impact on the intention to use technology for learning for Finnish people, this path is significant for the Korean people. Based on this, recommendations for prospect research in adopting the proposed model are outlined and theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

New opportunities for learning and teaching are introduced as the aftermath of the emergence of new digital technologies. Concurrently, change is taking place within the concept of literacy, as different dimensions of literacy have emerged. Information- and digital literacy are prominent examples of this, as their significance in the 21^st century has received an array of scholarly attention. However, dimensions of literacy and technology acceptance within the educational context have been extensively bound to the discussion of digital natives and digital immigrants based on their age factor. A generalisation of this nature disregards diversity within the suggested groups, as differences can appear in other influencing factors. Hence, this study aims to look beyond age as a divider of digital nativeness, and instead takes a focus on other possible boundaries of characterisation. The results show that both information and digital literacy are important factors, and that literacy is a competence that depends on the access, frequency of use and the ability to use digital technologies. As such, the interactions of individuals with digital technologies should be used to classify individuals as digital native and digital immigrants.