Digital Literacy and AI Awareness Among High School Students: Implications for Future Workforce Readiness

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-754-5_11How to use a DOI?

Keywords

AI Awareness; Digital Literacy; Workforce Readiness

Abstract

The rapid development of digital technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), has transformed the modern world of work, demanding new competencies from the future workforce. Although digital literacy is increasingly recognized as a critical 21st-century skill, attention to digital literacy and AI awareness among vocational students remains limited. This study measures digital literacy and AI awareness of vocational high school (SMK) students and examines their influence on workforce readiness in the digital era. A quantitative approach used a questionnaire distributed to 53 eleventh-grade students at SMK Plus Al Aitam Bandung, Indonesia, with multiple regression testing the influence of digital literacy and AI awareness on workforce readiness. Results show digital literacy is high (mean = 4.12), led by information literacy (4.32) and digital safety & ethics (4.26), while technological literacy (3.86) is lowest. AI awareness is also high (mean = 4.08), led by AI ethics & critical thinking (4.27) and AI application skills (4.24), while AI conceptual knowledge (3.81) needs strengthening. Overall workforce readiness is also high (mean = 4.06). Digital literacy and AI awareness jointly affect workforce readiness significantly (F = 20.163; sig. = 0.000), contributing 44.6% (R² = 0.446). Digital literacy alone has a positive, significant effect (β = 0.460; sig. = 0.003), while AI awareness shows a positive but non-significant effect (β = 0.260; sig. = 0.084), indicating an indirect influence mediated by other variables. These findings confirm the need to strengthen digital literacy as the foundation of workforce readiness while integrating AI concepts into the SMK curriculum.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this chapter or parts of it.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Ema Meliani
AU  - Fahmi Jahidah Islamy
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/09/02
TI  - Digital Literacy and AI Awareness Among High School Students: Implications for Future Workforce Readiness
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Digital Transformation in Business and Organisations (ICDTBO 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 113
EP  - 125
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-754-5_11
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-754-5_11
ID  - Meliani2026
ER  -