Investigating Malaysian undergraduates' online research performance in embracing education 4.0

In realising the vision of Education 4.0, there is a critical call to develop 21st century learning skills among learners especially in the higher education institutions. With the Internet becoming part and parcel of teaching and learning, learners need to develop digital literacy to exploit the abundant informational resources and learning opportunities available online. However, in second language (L2) learning, there is little research in digital literacy especially where online research and comprehension strategy performance is concerned. Therefore, this study investigated the current online research and comprehension capability of ESL undergraduates at a public university in Malaysia. 104 first year university students participated in this quantitative study which adapted an online performance-based assessment revised by Kingsley (2012), intended to measure online comprehension and research skills by requiring students to carry out actual online research during laboratory classroom sessions. Analysis of the online test results showed that the Malaysian undergraduates performed rather poorly during the assessment. This suggests that educators need to equip their learners with online research and comprehension training in building the students' 21st century learning skills and strategies that are key to Education 4.0. The findings provide initial support that online research and comprehension strategies training can be effective in improving online research skills.