Marc Prensky (2001a, 2001b) coined the terms "Digital Native" (DN) and "Digital Immigrant" (DI) to categorize what he thinks are people on two sides of a digital divide with regards to educational experiences. DNs are stereotyped in his article as younger individuals with many thousands of hours interacting with digital toys. DIs are stereotyped as older individuals with a background having less electronics expertise. The purpose of the questionnaire was to determine which skill sets fit each adjective according to journeymen of instructional technology. The results of the questionnaire may help determine how much the definitions of DI and DN may be linked to "trendy" electronics and how various electronics might be used to update the Digital Propensity Index Questionnaire (Henderson & Hirumi, 2005) for improved validation scores or other future revisions.
The questionnaire was distributed in a web-based format to the instructional technology email listserv of students and faculty at the University of Central Florida in the College of Education. The University of Central Florida Institutional Review Board approved the project on October 12, 2006, under IRB #06-3778 entitled "Instructional Technology Students' Perceptions of How Age Impacts Proficiency with Electronics." Dr. Laura Blasi was the supervising professor from the College of Education department of Educational Research, Technology and Leadership at the University of Central Florida.