Presentation at the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES 2018) in Sevilla in the panel “New lives in new worlds – refugees from the MENA region in their new environments. Interdisciplinary panels for refugee research“.

1. Integrating Refugee Migrants into the
Labor Market:
The Necessity of Digital Skills for the Job
Seeking Process
Violeta Trkulja & Juliane Stiller
Berlin School of Library and Information Science, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
July 18, 2018 WOCMES, Sevilla
„Reales Alcázares de Sevilla“ by victorianorivero (CC BY 2.0)

2. Agenda
○ Introduction
○ Digital Skills: Concepts & Definitions
○ Methods for Measuring Digital Skills
○ Results
○ Future Work & Discussion
2

3. Information Science
○ Interdisciplinary field related to library and computer
science, social sciences and humanities
○ Focuses on different aspects of information
○ Interplay of people, information systems and
knowledge organizations
○ Specifically interested in: digitized cultural heritage,
digital information behavior, research data
management, digital and information literacy
3

4. Forced Migration Studies
○ Information as one perspective in the field of forced
migration studies
○ Perspective is often overlooked
○ Use of information systems by special group of people
○ How can information practices of refugees be steered
to support the integration process?
○ How can refugees’ information needs be better
supported?
4

5. Labor Market Integration
○ Employment is one of the key criteria for feeling
integrated (UNHCR Research, 2013)
○ Job-seeking activities increasingly move online
○ Integration activities in Germany for refugees are not
designed for job orientation
○ Untapped potential of refugees‘ qualifications
○ Digital skills are necessary to be able to enter the labor
market
5

6. To Find a Job, One Needs ...
○ Information about
○ ways to find employment in the host country,
○ work practices in host country specific to certain domain,
○ the right to work under different residence permits,
○ local labor market traditions and pratices such as
○ application processes,
○ common interview questions,
○ codes and rules of the working place.
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To find, manage, assess and critically apply information to life
situations, one needs digital skills

7. Digital Skills
Concepts & Definitions

8. Definitions
○ Digital skills, digital literacy, information literacy, digital
competences …
○ According to Iordache u. a. (2017) we define:
○ Digital Knowledge: knowledge about digital tools
○ Digital Skills: ability to apply this knowledge
○ Digital Competence: use these sets of knowledge and
skills for one’s personal development
8

9. Analyzing Digital Skills
○ Understand deficits in finding, processing and
analyzing information on the Internet
○ Design targeted courses that contribute to the
development of digital skills
○ Benefit from the opportunities that arise through the
Internet
○ Improve chances for labor market integration
○ Contribute an important aspect of forced migration
research
9

10. Digital Literacy Frameworks
○ Iordache et al. (2017) examined the commonalities and
differences of 13 Digital Literacy Frameworks
○ 5 groups of competencies:
○ Operational, technical, and formal
○ Information and cognition
○ Digital communication
○ Digital content creation
○ Strategic
10

11. Internet Skill Scale
(v. Deursen, 2010; v. Dijk & v. Deursen, 2014; v. Deursen u.a., 2015)
strategic
Developing an orientation toward a particular goal, taking the
correct actions to reach this goal, making the right decisions to
reach this goal
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Defining the information problem, choosing a search system to
seek information, defining search options or queries, selecting &
evaluating information sources
information
operational
Recognizing and operating the Internet service’s toolbars,
buttons, and menus, managing different file formats opened or
saved from Internet services
formal
Navigating the Internet by using hyperlinks embedded in
different formats such as texts, images, menus, emails, or
applications

12. Methods
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13. Pre-Study
○ Lab-study with 7 participants in August 2017 (Stiller &
Trkulja, 2018)
○ Survey on internet activities
○ 9 tasks for digital skill assessment
○ Purposeful sample of participants
○ Formal requirements (as envisioned by the German
government) to enter German workforce
○ Between age of 18-33 from Syria and Iraq
○ 6 male and 1 female participants
○ Level of German language skills = B1 and higher
○ Status of residency with long-term perspective
○ High educational level (academics, students)
13

14. 9 Tasks to Determine Digital Skills
operational 1. Download and save a file
formal
2. Use specified site search and remove filter
3. find address of jobcenter with specified website
strategic
8. Find three jobs with highest salary during training and career
9. Match perks for employees to three given companies
information
4. Find information on a specified website
5. Determine standard size of an application photo
6. Determine the minimum wage per hour
7. Determine minimum vacation days

15. Setting and Conditions
○ Tasks conducted in a usability lab
○ Tasks were timed
○ Ordered from easy to hard
○ Screen recordings for all tasks
○ All online resources could be used to fulfill tasks
(except use of mobile phones)
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16. Results
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17. Pre-Study - Results
○ All participants used laptops and mobile phones to
access the Internet in their daily lives
○ Participants had a high level of Internet affinity
○ Use of internet for entertainment, social networking,
shopping and research
○ For all these activities the participants rated their own
skills as good or very good
17

18. Results of the Online Tasks (mean)
18
4
4
5.25
0
3
3
1.75
7
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
operational
formal
information
strategic
successful completion unsuccessful task

19. Limits of Study
○ Countdown timer was stressing participants
○ Participants were under pressure to “perform well”
○ Chose real-world scenarios in job seeking but they
were artificial to the way refugee migrants normally find
work (via personal networks)
○ Concept of choosing work you like or that matches your
talents
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20. Results
○ In screencasts, we observed:
○ Only basic search strategies
○ No advanced search functionalities
○ Often unsuccessful information seeking processes
○ Lack of website orientation (understanding of structure of
website?)
○ Successful fact-based information seeking
○ Strategic searches were rather unsuccessful
○ No information source evaluation
○ Perceived skills were higher than measured skills
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21. Discussion & Future Work
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22. Further Studies
○ Currently conduct an lab-based experiment 20+
participants (OCLC/ALISE Research Grant 2018)
○ Extend study with interviews and surveys
○ Explore digital skills, barriers to information access,
information needs and abilities of refugees in the work
process
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Long-term: Establish a training program for the acquisition of
digital skills for refugees

23. 3 Take-Aways
1. Information is an integral part of successful integration
but skills for handling, processing and applying
information are not universal
2. “Cultural information space” and digital literacy are
connected
3. Teaching concepts and trainings are missing that
convey digital skills and the cultural information space
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24. References
Deursen, A. J. A. M. van. (2010). Internet skills : vital assets in an information society. https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789036530866
Iordache, C., Mariën, I., & Baelden, D. (2017). Developing Digital Skills and Competences: A Quick-Scan Analysis of 13 Digital
Literacy Models. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 9 (1), 6-30, doi:10.14658/pupj-ijse-2017-1-2
OECD (2016), "Skills for a Digital World: 2016 Ministerial Meeting on the Digital Economy Background Report", OECD Digital
Economy Papers, No. 250, OECD Publishing, Paris.
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., & van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2009). Improving digital skills for the use of online public information and services.
Government Information Quarterly, 26(2), 333–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2008.11.002
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlwz83z3wnw-en
Stiller, J. & Trkulja, V. (2018). Assessing Digital Skills of Refugee Migrants during Job Orientation in Germany. Transforming Digital
Worlds. iConference 2018, ed. by Chowdhury G., McLeod J., Gillet V., Willett P. , vol. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp.
527-536, Springer.
UNHCR (2013). A New Beginning: Refugee Integration in Europe. Retrieved from http://www.refworld.org/docid/522980604.html
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., & van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2014). Digital Skills - Unlocking the Information Society. Palgrave Macmillan US.
Abgerufen von http://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9781137437020
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., Helsper, E. J., & Eynon, R. (2015). Development and validation of the Internet Skills Scale (ISS).
Information, Communication & Society, 19(6), 804–823. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1078834
Weitzel, T., Eckhardt, A., Laumer, S., Maier, C., von Stetten, A., Weinert, C., & Wirth, J. (2015). Recruiting Trends 2015 - Eine
empirische Untersuchung mit den Top-1.000-Unternehmen aus Deutschland sowie den Top-300-Unternehmen aus den
Branchen Finanzdienstleistung, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg. Retrieved from https://www.uni-
bamberg.de/isdl/transfer/e-recruiting/recruiting-trends/recruiting-trends-2015/
Wiedner, J., Salikutluk, Z.., & Giesecke, J. (2017). Arbeitsmarktintegration von Geflüchteten: Potenziale, Perspektiven und
Herausforderungen. State-of-Research-Papier 7, Verbundprojekt “Flucht: Forschung und Transfer”, Osnabrück: Institut für
Migrationsforschung und Interkulturelle Studien (IMIS) der Universität Osnabrück / Bonn: Internationals Konversionszentrum
Bonn (BICC), März 2018. Retrieved from https://flucht-forschung-transfer.de/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/SoR-07-
Arbeitsmarktintegration-von-Gefl%C3%BCchteten.pdf
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25. 25Questions
Contact
Dr. Juliane Stiller
juliane.stiller@ibi.hu-berlin.de
stillinsky
Dr. Violeta Trkulja
violeta.trkulja@ibi.hu-berlin.de
viokeka