Investigating the digital readiness for academic engagement of international university students

"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin. Digital technologies are well known for active involvement of learners in the teaching learning process, so digital competence is essential for the university students at any level for both their academic success and for use in their respective careers. The purpose of this study was to investigate digital readiness of international university students for academic engagement. It was conducted at Gaziantep University on international students from Africa, America, Asia and European continents studying at different faculties like education, medicine, theology, engineering and law among others and at different years of study. A quantitative descriptive survey involved 288 students (64.2% male and 35.8% female), questionnaires in 3 different languages i.e. Arabic, English and Turkish language were administered. The instrument contained 17 items derived from Hung and Kim (2018) DRAE scale having 5 subscales; digital media awareness, digital tool application, information seeking skills, information sharing behaviour and digital application usage. The findings revealed that to a large extent the international university students are ready for the digital technologies' utilization in the academic field. Despite the fact that there were some deficiencies at the digital media awareness and digital tool application subscales. The findings showed that there were significant differences (p≤0.05) in participant's gender, geographical region, year, level and faculty of study groups. The researcher recommended provision of extra digital technology related lessons to students, political stability in the Middle East region and increased access to digital technology by students at high school to prepare them their usage at university level. Keywords: Digital readiness, Student engagement, International University students