<b>Digital Information Skills and Digital Inequality</b>

Information searching and information management are an essential part of everyday life in today's information society. The skills to find, evaluate, and organize digital information are needed in both professional and personal contexts, such as work, education, and leisure time. Digital information skills are considered one of the three adult basic skills, alongside reading and numeracy skills.

This study examines how various factors related to person (e.g., age, gender), position (e.g., education, employment position), and resources (e.g., digital activity, in-service training) explain digital information skills. The theoretical framework of the study is Jan van Dijk's Resources and Appropriation theory. In Finland, research on digital information skills has mainly focused on schools and students. This study provides new insights into the digital information skills of Finnish adults and workshop youth.

The empirical data used in the study consisted of four different groups: primary and secondary school students (n = 3,222), workshop youth (n = 93), metal industry employees (n = 270), and teachers (n = 4,988). The data was collected using digital skills testing applications developed at the University of Turku. The research methods were correlation analysis, linear regression analysis, and cluster analysis.

Regarding individual factors, age and gender were associated with better information skills only among adults. Teachers' digital activity, self-efficacy, and digital information skills decreased with age. Digital activity and age explained most of the variation in teachers’ digital information skills. Among metal industry employees, older age groups had weaker digital information skills than younger ones. Men performed slightly better than women and also had more confidence in their digital skills compared to women.

Regarding positional factors, both education and position at work were associated with digital information skills. Among metal industry employees, education and using digital tools at work were the most important factors explaining digital information skills. The relationship between work position and digital information skills could only be studied among metal workers. Clerical employees performed better than the production workers. Production workers used digital tools more in their free time than at work, while clerical workers used digital tools at work more than during their free time. Routine factory work, where the use of digital tools is limited, may lead to a vicious circle that prevents skill development.

The most significant resource factor was digital activity. Furthermore, selfefficacy and in-service training explained teachers' digital information skills. In the metal industry, production workers' use of digital tools related to their work was the most important factor explaining digital information skills. The use of digital tools in the workplace also strongly correlated with education and position. On the other hand, leisure-time digital use did not explain digital information skills. Using digital tools during leisure time is often simpler than using them during working hours. For workshop youth, digital activity or individual use of digital tools was not related to digital information skills. The only variables that explained digital information skills for them were skills in other areas of digital competence.

The results of regression analyses indicate that age was the only person-related factor that explained digital information skills, and even then, only for teachers. Regarding positional factors, educational background explained digital information skills. However, the most significant predictors of information skills were resource factors. Therefore, available resources, such as digital activity and skills in other areas of digital competence, were more significant than personal or positional factors. For instance, merely the position at work does not explain digital information skills; the true determinant of skills is the experience of using digital tools. This is a positive result as it is easier to influence resource factors.