Exploration of Digital Literacy Among Muslim Household Women in West Bengal, India

Digital literacy is the ability of an individual to locate, organize, evaluate, analyze and use the required information using digital technologies. It includes a working knowledge of several technologies and understanding of how it can be used. The main objective of the study was to explore the digital literacy of the Muslim household women from West Bengal. The present study also determines the type of device used by them, determining the usage purpose and examines the digital literacy skill.The study is Descriptive survey nature where purposive sampling techniques has been adopted for selecting the respondents from the study area of West Bengal. The total number of respondents were 103. As a research instrument investigator used two different tools- firstly Self-made questionnaire on the usage purpose. Secondly, Digi tal skill questionnaire developed by “Clinically validated Integrated Support for Assistive Care and Lifestyle Improvement: the Human Link –Vinci”. The data were analyzed with the help of descriptive and inferential statistics using SPSS software.The findings of the study reveals that there is significant relationship between the usage purpose of internet and the digital literacy.The highly significant relationship is found between involving in social networking sites for communication i.e., .937, which indicates that due to rapid increase of internet use through digital gadgets for communicating with different social networking sites has gradually empowered their digital literacy.The cause and effect level is high and the null hypothesis is rejected. Here digital skill is influenced by the factors of competency level, communication level, content creation level, ability to adopt safety measures and communication level.Therefore now days household women while maintaining the home tradition and culture parallel they are also maintaining track with the digital world as because some of them may have pre- literacy digital skill before their marriage or they may have learned after their marriage.


INTRODUCTION
Under the present scenario, the concept of literacy has evolved in line with the technological revolution.Due to the increase in technology like computers, laptops, smartphones, iPods, etc., these technologies have become strongly cohesive into society that people without adequate digital literacy skills would feel alienated.There has been a variety of definitions of digital literacy since Paul Gilster first introduced the term in 1997 in his book, 'Digital Literacy', in which he described the term as "The ability to understand and utilize information presented by computers in a variety of formats and from a variety of sources.". Later, in 2005 Martin defined digital literacy as "the ability to succeed in one's encounters with the electronic infrastructures and tools that make possible the world of the 21st century". Bell and Shank (2008) stated that digital literacy as,an individual's awareness, attitude, and ability to use digital tools.
It facilities to identify, access, manage, integrate, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others in the process of enabling social action through the context of particular life situation and reflection upon the process. Therefore it is an individual's knowledge of how and when to generate, communicate, and use digital technologies to support these processes illustrates their capability to make and share information in different modes and formats. Though the digital literacy have launched in the present world of West Bengal but how much it has explored the homemakers from Muslim community is the present concerned. Globally in developing countries, the number of women using the internet is 12% less than men. The reasons for low digital literacy amongst women are manifold. Because of lack of competence and training facilities, women faces several barriers (Boekhorst, A., & Britz, 2004).
The process of digital literacy and digital inclusion is important for women due to access to financial services and digital services. In addition to access to financial services, mobile money services will help them to empower in small. It will give them control over their currency and savingshelp them to access in order to regenerating the wealth of information, help them to communicate with each other freely, recovering a sense of agency as they educate themselves in new chops (Ramamurthy, P., Siridevi, E., & Ramu, 2015). The Muslims woman as one of the group that are in backlog in the world in the field of attainment of empowerment in every field starting from attainment of education to property right. We have to rise to the occasion in the trend of present world so that they can come up in par with others. Otherwise, on the Day of Judgment, when we all have to pass through the test where Almighty Allah will seek answers from us as to why we failed when we had all the openings.Therefore, we need to change our mindset. They are not children producing machines. They are not sex objects as well. They have lived just like men. They need to be empowered. They need respect. They need love and care. They want someone to understand them and help them to move with world progression. The present study depicted that maintain the home culture and tradition they are also maintaining a track with the digital mobile world that improve their digital literacy day by day.

RESEARCH METHOD
According to Casey (1995), research design consists of structure of research and techniques of conducting research. The design of the study is Survey type. It is a consistent and systematic plan prepared for directing a research study. It specifies the objectives of the study and techniques were adopted to achieve the stated objectives (Mansour, 2017).

Statement of Problem
Surveys have shown that discrimination against women is widely accepted among many countries. In 2013, the Pew research center conducted a global survey in 39 Muslim-majority countries, involving more than 38,000 face-to-face interviews in more than 80 languages (Purohit, Harsh & Bharti, Niharika & Joshi, 2015). The results show that 85% of Muslims believe that wives should always subservient to and obey their husbands . This created a kind of barriers on the ankle of women where their exposure to the world as their own identity is limited. The women of nowadays are maintaining connection with the external world as a homemaker through social media back up by digitalization. As most of the Muslim family have, their own tradition and heritage which sometimes creates constraints for them to make connection with external world and they are needed to maintain the same (Singh, 2005). Digital literacy need additional reading and writing skills. Through this skill they will be able to manage vast information and able to use them effectively and as well as efficiently. However, the digitalization have launched all over the world but how much it has influenced the homemakers from Muslim community is the present concern of research study. Therefore, the statement of problem is "Exploration of Digital Literacy among Muslim Household women in West Bengal,India ".

Flowchart of Study Research
The present study were carried out in different districts of West Bengal. To explore the digital literacy among the Muslim Household women in West Bengal. It helped to know the characteristics or variables under the study (Martin, 2005). At the execution stage of the survey research, the main activities will be performed by a researcher will be very much concerned with designing selection of representative sample, making use of survey tool, i.e., questionnaire as the most likely preferred tool for collecting, processing, analyzing, data or information for getting genuine answers that is being raised in research problem (Rehman, S. U., & Alfaresi, 2009). So the investigator must frame it with standardization, development and application with task of reporting along with conclusion or findings reached for the very purpose of effective utilization in survey studies. See figure 3.

Area of Study
The study was conducted in the different districts of West Bengal where the concentration of Muslim population were high .

Target Population
The total percentage of Muslim homemaker women who were dwelling in different districts of West Bengal, India.

Method of Data Collection
The study made use of both primary and secondary data. Primary data were collected by applying the self-made tools on digital literacy and responses were collected from the respondents through interview. It refers to that data which is collected for a specific purpose from the field and are original in nature. Secondary data were collected through various web sources and expert opinion, various textbooks, websites, journals, dissertations, etc (Ozdamar-Keskin, N., Ozata, F. Z., Banar, K., & Royle, 2015) .

Sample of the Study
To estimate the sample size Krejcie and Morgan table were used. For a given population of 140 the collected number of sample for study is 103 (Rafique, 2014

Sampling Technique
Investigator used purposive sampling techniques for data collection. Data, collected from primary sources, has been compiled from Quantitative analysis (Moyo, M., & Mavodza, 2016). This technique is based on three criteria, which are delineated below: 1. Firstly, the respondents must belong from the community of Muslim. 2. Secondly, the respondents must be a homemaker.
3. Thirdly, they must belong from the state of West Bengal in India.

Tools used for study
1. Self-made questionnaire on the usage purpose. 2. Digital skill questionnaire developed by "Clinically validated Integrated Support for Assistive Care and Lifestyle Improvement: the Human Link -Vinci".

Analysis and Interpretation
For analysis, data were scientifically interpreted.

Pertaining to Hypothesis-1
1. Ho1:The usage purpose of internet is not significantly relatedwith the digital literacy. 2. To test the hypothesis 5-point Likert scale were used by the researcher and the data is interpreted table 1. Among 103 sample 91 (88.34%) of the Muslim household women uses digital devices. Most of them prefer smart android phone i.e. 47 (51.64%), followed by desktop i.e., 42 (46.15%) and very least number prefer to use laptop i.e., 2 (2.19%). They find that android phone are very handy and portable for them, configuration are more easy and understandable in compare to other devices (Lau, 2001). From the table 2, it was found that the respondents who use digital devices mostly use it for entertainment purpose that is 56 (61.5%), followed by 55 (60.4%) for communication purpose. Furthermore 53 (58.24%) of them use for involving in different social networking groups, 48 (52.74%) for searching information, 42 (46.15%) of them use it for mails, 41 (45.05%) for online and banking transaction and 40 (43.09%) of them for accessing various online resources (Association, 2013).  (Sultana, 2018).724, for online transaction is .820 and for accessing online resources is .866.The correlation coefficient between the variables of emails and for communication is .882, for different social networking sites .833, for entertainment is .641, for online transaction is .812 and for accessing online resources is .860.The correlation coefficient between the variables for communication and involving in different social networking sites is .937, for entertainment is .702, for online transaction is .849 and for accessing online resources is .858.The correlation coefficient between the variables of involving in different social networking sites and for entertainment is .651, for online transaction is .810 and for accessing online resources is .837.The correlation coefficient between the variables of entertainment and online banking transaction is (Techataweewan, W., & Prasertsin, 2018) .875 and for online resources is .848. The correlation coefficient between the variables of online transaction and accessing online resources is .931.Since P value (.000) is less than 0.05 there is positive relationship between the variables and as a result null hypothesis rejected and therefore there is significant relationship between the variables. The highly significant relationship is found between involving in social networking sites for communication i.e., .937 which indicates that due to rapid increase of internet use through digital gadgets for communicating with different social networking sites has gradually empowered their digital literacy (Parvathamma, N., & Pattar, 2013).

Pertaining to Hypothesis -2
Ho2: The digital skill has no significant effect on self-dependence of Muslim Household women from West Bengal .
To test the hypothesis the digital literacy skill of the respondents were determined through the questionnaire of digital skills where the dimensions were competency area, communication area, content creation area, safety area and problem solving area. The data were interpreted below (Maharana, B., & Mishra, n.d.).   │ 47 information about software, tools, packages and able to become conversant about safety measures and develop problem solving abilities.Furthermore, there is a positive correlation between content creation and safety measure variables i.e., .950 and remaining 5% indicates no relationship (Floyd, D. M., Colvin, G., & Bodur, 2008). There is a positive correlation between content creation and problem solving skill i.e., .747 and remaining 26% indicates no relationship. Since P value (.000) is less than 0.05 there is positive relationship between the content creation and other variables. There is positive correlation between safety measures and problem solving abilities i.e., .724 and remaining 28% indicates no relationship between the variables.Since P value (.000) is less than 0.05 there is positive relationship between the content creation and other variables .  (Biradar, Kavita and Naik, 2017).897 difference which is an error of prediction and F statistics show higher value, which means that the model is fit for further interpretation. The significance level is .000, which is less than .05 and .01 levels, which indicates that independent variable has positive effect on dependent variable.The cause and effect level is high and the null hypothesis is rejected. Here digital skill is influenced by the factorsof competency level, communication level, content creation level, ability to adopt safety measures and communication level which help them to become self dependence. From the Anova table 7, it is being concluded that the F statistics show higher value which means that the model is fit for further interpretation. The sum of squares is the total variation on digital skill that is being explained by the model. The variability in the dataset is about 96% explained by the model. The residual is (Sampath Kumar, B. T., Basavaraja, M. T., & Gagendra, 2014).391which also indicates the model fitness. The p value is less than .000, which indicates the 95% confidence level that there is high positive relationship between the variables.  The coefficient table 8 indicates the amount of change in the dependent variable for a unit of change in the independent variable (Baikady, M. R., & Mudhol, 2013). The coefficient of communication is -.024, content creation is -.037, problem level -.005 which states that for every unit increase in communication, content creation and problem solving levels there is -.024,-.037 and -.005 unit respectively decrease in the predicted score of digital skill, holding all other variables constant. As the p, value is greater than .05 for communication content creation and problem solving so it is statistically not significant, as it is not different from 0. On the other hand safety and competence level values were .044 and .286 respectively which states that every unit increase in the safety and competence level there is .044 and .286 unit respectively increase in the predicted scores of digital skill, holding all other variable constant. As the p value safety level is greater than .05 so it is statistically, as it is not different from 0. But the p value of competence level is less than .05 so it is statistically significant, as it is not different from 0 (Khan, 2015)

Discussion
The finding of the study revealed that most of the Muslim household prefer to use digital gadgets i.e., 88.3%. Again, 11% of women does not prefer to use digital gadgets as they are not familiar with the configuration, many of them were not allowed to use it in their home, some kind of literacy factor creates a barrier for them to avail it.
Among digital gadgets, women prefer to use smart android device than any other digital gadgets. With rapidly changing technology in the smart phones able to do the same work, same as which computer internet browser does. Smartphones, or phones that can connect to the internet and run apps, are the most prevalent type of mobile device.Mobile plays perfectly into women who are looking for a simpler, more convenient way to buy online -particularly those who may be already out on the high street than sitting at home in front of the computer.
Most of them who uses smart phone they mainly use it for entertainment followed by communication purpose, it has now become a trend to use it and a kind of showy status prevail in the society. Linking with facebook, whats app, twitter etc., all are the trendy features, which help them to communicate with their friends and relatives, and by frequent use of it for the same, gradually their digital │ 49 literacy has empowered. Again for searching any new information or sources like finding new apps for home shopping, destination vacation, getting idea about price of hotels etc, also help them to empower their literacy and now they can connect with the new world of technology. Digital skill has been improved among the Muslim household women when searching online resources, sending any content, files or images to other. Even they know that there are some sites, which are not reliable. Therefore, it has increased the digital competency skill. Gradually with the enhancement of skill, they can communicate with others using mobile phone, Voice over IP (e.g. Skype) e-mail or chatusing basic features (e.g. voice messaging, SMS, send and receive e-mails, text exchange), they know the editing; can modify the simple functions and others.

CONCLUSION
Most of the women can produce content by visualizing the steps from published videos, apply simple functions of software, able to produce digital content etc. With the gradual use of the device they were also aware about the demerits of using the device like it can affect the health of the individuals, if using it for long hours, every device has some credentials which need not to be share with others due too security issue, if the device get affected then the basic initial steps need to be follow. However, they are well conversant with the initial steps but not conversant with technical problems of the device. When confronted with a technological or non-technological problem, they cannot use the digital tools I know to solve it. So problem solving ability is moderately correlated with competence level of the Muslim women. Therefore now days household women while maintaining the home tradition and culture parallel they are also maintaining track with the digital world as because some of them may have pre-literacy digital skill before their marriage or they may have learned after their marriage.