







































Education, Language and Sociology Research 

ISSN 2690-3644 (Print) ISSN 2690-3652 (Online) 

Vol. 6, No. 1, 2025 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/elsr 

88 
 

Original Paper 

The Impact of Digital Education on Innovation Performance of 

Postgraduate Students 

Mengyuan Su1 & Yuhan Shen2 

1 School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, 310018, China 

2 Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London WC1N 1PF, UK 

 

Received: January 17, 2025     Accepted: February 6, 2025    Online Published: February 25, 2025 

doi:10.22158/elsr.v6n1p88          URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/elsr.v6n1p88 

 

Abstract 

[Purpose/significance] With the deepening of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and 

industrial transformation, the higher education has received more and more attention, especially in the 

context of current digital economy. According to the current development of the management, it is urgent 

to use the digital education, which is closely connected to digital technology. The study verified the 

contribution of higher education to the innovative performance of postgraduate students entering the 

workforce so as to provide a scientific reference for the high education in China.  

[Method/process] We collected data 221 graduate postgraduate from Zhejiang Gongshang University in 

China, then used SPSSAU to test our hypotheses, investigated the relationship among digital education, 

digital competency and innovation performance. 

[Result/conclusion] The results showed that digital education has a significant positive impact on 

intelligence competence, intelligence competence has also a significant positive impact on innovation 

performance of postgraduate students just entering the workforce within five years. The conclusion of 

this article can be apply to both improve the effectiveness of graduate education and the employee 

innovation performance. 

Keywords 

digital education, digital competency, innovation performance 

 

1. Introduction 

Since 2018, the state has successively issued relevant policies and guidance recommendations to 

encourage the development of the digital economy, and also encourage enterprises to help industrial 

upgrading and transformation through digital technology. The report of the 19th National Congress of 

the Communist Party of China pointed out that we will accelerate the building of a strong manufacturing 



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country, accelerate the development of advanced manufacturing, promote the deep integration of the 

Internet, big data, artificial intelligence and the real economy, and foster new growth points and new 

driving forces in mid-to-high-end consumption, innovation-led, green and low-carbon, sharing economy, 

modern supply chain, and human capital services. In the report of the Party’s 20th National Congress, it 

was proposed to “accelerate the construction of a network power and a digital China”, which pointed out 

the direction for the development of big data and put forward higher requirements. 

“Competency” is a concept proposed by David McCleland. The competency model contains seven 

elements, namely, behavior-oriented achievement orientation, goal orientation, initiative, self-control, 

adaptability, interpersonal influence and psychological awareness. Nowadays, digital technology has 

entered an era of rapid development, providing necessary conditions for Chinese enterprises to improve 

production relations. With the disappearance of low-cost advantages, how to reshape the core 

competitiveness of Chinese enterprises has become an important issue in the development of enterprises, 

and digital operation management talents play an important role in the digital economy. The competence 

that digital operation management personnel should have can actually be equivalent to digital 

competence. Some people have built a competency model for digital operation and management talents, 

which is composed of digital thinking ability, professional knowledge ability, communication and 

coordination ability, responsibility and innovation ability (Lu & Feng, 2023). 

With the advent of the digital age, the importance of digital competence is increasingly recognized by 

the public. The cultivation of traditional linear thinking is no longer in line with the logic of The Times. 

The cultivation of digital competency requires network thinking in the digital age. Over the years, a 

variety of frameworks, models and literacies have been developed to guide teacher educators in their 

efforts to build digital capabilities in their students, that will support them to use new and emerging 

technologies in their future classrooms. Generally, these focus on advancing students’ skills in using 

“educational” applications and digitally-sourced information, or understanding effective blends of 

pedagogical, content and technological knowledge seen as supporting the integration of digital resources 

into teaching, to enhance subject learning outcomes. Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) topics into the 

K-12 school curriculum can develop children’s agency, understanding, creativity, and moral awareness 

in the age of AI (Kahila et al., 2024). 

With the wide application of information technology, digital materials, media and equipment have 

become the necessary abilities and tools for teachers in modern education, and digital materials have 

become the mainstream teaching tools, creating a variety of creative teaching strategies. This teaching 

strategy or model aims to develop and cultivate students’ creativity through various effective ways and 

methods. (Hu et al., 2016) Used the quasi-experimental research method, where 104 students in two 

classes in a national university are selected for the experiment, their research results showed that the 

teaching method using digital technology has strongly promoted the creativity of students. 

With the advent of the digital age, the importance of digital competence is increasingly recognized by 

the public. Digital competence was first proposed for educators and gradually extended to workers in all 



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industries (Caena & Redecker, 2019). The increasing adoption of digital technologies at the workplace 

demands lifelong learning for the employees by enhancing their digital competence (DC), impacting their 

basic psychological needs satisfaction (BPNS). Mungra, Srivastava, Sharma, Banerji, and Gollapudi 

(2024) assessed the effect of employees’ DC on flourishing through BPNS factors among working 

professionals in service industries by proposing the BPNS framework. 

In the context of digital power, the environment is constantly changing, scientific and technological 

innovation is changing rapidly, and the form and operation mode of organizations have been completely 

different from the past in many aspects. Adhering to the past rules, systems, norms and procedures is 

likely to be extremely unfavorable to the development of organizations. As the executor of organizational 

innovation, employees’ “trying” and “optimizing” effective ways and rules in their daily work are 

important supports for organizations to adapt to uncertain environments (Mertens et al., 2016). This kind 

of unconventional behavior out of positive intention improves the well-being of the organization or its 

stakeholders, and is also the ultimate goal of college graduate personnel training. 

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of the digital education on the digital competency of 

graduate students, and then how to promote the innovative performance of graduate students after 

graduation, so as to explore the improvement of graduate talent training system. 

 

2. Research Hypothesis 

Since 2018, Zhejiang Gongshang University has fully emphasized the necessity of digital education and 

conducted digital education from the aspects of curriculum setting, educational philosophy, teaching 

reform direction guidance, etc. At the same time, for the majority of teachers, lectures on “artificial 

intelligence + financial development Overview and trend” and “Artificial intelligence Interdisciplinary 

and Teacher Teaching Innovation” have been held. Teaching reform and innovation and other aspects of 

experience. In order to verify the effectiveness of digital education and its relationship with graduates’ 

innovation performance, this study constructs the following theoretical research model (See Figure 1). 

 

 

Figure 1. Research Model 

 

While graduate education aims to enhance students’ comprehensive abilities, digital education pays more 

attention to enhancing students’ practical experience and creative abilities, such as cross-functional 

teamwork, communication and coordination, and decision-making management. Digital competence is 

a comprehensive competence with creation as the core, and digital education can promote the 

improvement of digital competence. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed in this study: 

Hypothesis 1: Digital education promotes digital competency among graduate students. 



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Although there is no direct evidence and research conclusion that digital competence has a positive 

impact on innovation performance. However, previous studies have shown that: IT capability theory and 

resource-based view, digital transformation, as a unique resource input, can help enterprises integrate 

organizational resources and form digital capabilities, thus improving enterprise innovation ability and 

overall performance (Bharadwaj, 2000). Digital transformation can promote the innovation performance 

of enterprises (Wang, 2021). Huang et al. (2021) proved that the current digitalization level of Chinese 

enterprises is positively correlated with enterprise innovation performance, and the enterprises that have 

set up digital resource information sharing platform have more significant promoting effect. Wang and 

Du (2021) point out that digital technology has a significant positive impact on enterprise innovation 

performance, in which employee participation plays an intermediary role. When the enterprise network 

centrality is high, the positive relationship between digital technology and employee participation will 

be enhanced, and the indirect effect of digital technology on enterprise innovation performance through 

employee participation will also be enhanced. The conclusions of these studies can be deduced that digital 

competence can have a positive impact on employees’ innovation performance. 

Employee’s internal factors are important factors affecting innovation performance. Capability is the 

origin of all actions. In the context of digital power, most jobs, especially those with obvious innovation 

(the vast majority of graduate students surveyed in this study belong to this category), are inseparable 

from the application of digital technology. Digital competency is a key feature that can distinguish 

employees with excellent innovation performance from those with poor innovation performance. 

Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed in this study: 

Hypothesis 2: Digital competency of graduate students has a positive impact on innovation performance. 

Digital education pays more attention to the improvement of students’ practical experience and 

comprehensive ability, which promotes the improvement of students’ innovation ability and can bring 

about the improvement of innovation performance. However, it also promotes innovation performance 

partly through the improvement of digital competence. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed 

in this study: 

Hypothesis 3: Digital competency mediates the impact of digital education on the innovation 

performance of graduate students. 

 

3. Empirical Analysis 

3.1 Participant 

This questionnaire survey is conducted by using offline graduate student resources and online 

questionnaire distribution. The questionnaire was distributed online through the convenient, fast and 

efficient “questionnaire star”, and a total of 221 questionnaires were collected. 

SPSSAU data analysis software was used to extract valid samples from the research data. The gender, 

working time, salary and other information of graduates are statistically described, as shown in Table 1. 

 



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Table 1. Sample Basic Information (N=221) 

Variables Types Frequency  Proportion (%)  

Gender 
Male 88 39.8% 

Female 133  60.1% 

Age 

25 below 11 4.80% 

22-24  28 12.60% 

25-26  37 14.70% 

27-28  97 41.70% 

28 above 18 26.20% 

Tenure 

1year below 16 7.10% 

1-3year 157 70.20% 

3-4year 30 13.80% 

4year above 20 8.90% 

Monthly salary 

5000 below 3  1.5% 

5000-8000Yuan 13  5.9% 

8000-12000Yuan 71  32.1% 

12000 above 134  60.5% 

 

Marketing 55  24.7% 

Finance 72  27.6% 

Management 76  29.5% 

Others 19  18.4% 

 5000-8000Yuan 13  5.9% 

Major 8000-12000Yuan 71  32.1% 

 12000Above 134  60.5% 

 Marketing 55  24.7% 

 Finance 72  27.6% 

 Management 76  29.5% 

 Others 19  18.4% 

 

As can be seen from the statistical information in the above table, in terms of gender, there are more 

women in the study sample, which is consistent with the reality. In recent years, there have been more 

women graduate students majoring in business at Zhejiang Gongshang University. In terms of salary, 

most graduate students earn more than 12,000 yuan a month. The liberal arts majors of Zhejiang 



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Gongshang University mainly focus on marketing, finance and human resources, and the salary of 

graduate students is also consistent with the reality. 

3.2 Measure 

The survey and measurement of digital education are carried out from the three levels of curriculum, 

teachers and educational philosophy. Specific projects include: setting up big data analysis, artificial 

intelligence and other related courses; Have the opportunity to take courses in other disciplines such as 

psychology, computer science, and product design; Set up enterprise operation simulation training, ERP, 

digital marketing, entrepreneurship management and other comprehensive practical training courses; The 

curriculum emphasizes practice and case studies; The teacher or tutor will make a long-term career plan 

according to the student’s own personality and interests; There are teachers with diverse backgrounds 

and front-line work experience in enterprises; Invite business executives, industry mentors and other 

personnel to provide practical and employment guidance to students in the form of lectures and 

consultations; Teachers use digital education platform, case studies, group discussions, business practice, 

field trips, project cooperation, discussion guidance and other diversified teaching forms, so that students 

can directly contact and solve real business problems; Proactively visit enterprises; Professional 

education adhere to “market-oriented”; The school emphasizes on various occasions that academic 

should have more practical experience and comprehensive ability; Take interdisciplinary and 

comprehensive application ability as the training goal; The school advocates project-driven learning to 

exercise students’ ability of cross-functional teamwork, communication and coordination, and decision-

making management. 

At present, it is a general consensus that innovation performance is divided into three dimensions, namely, 

the germination of innovative ideas, the promotion of innovative ideas and the realization of innovative 

ideas. Based on these three dimensions, six item scales are set up for the measurement of innovation 

performance. This scale has been widely used by scholars for a long period of time, with universality and 

consensus. This scale is applicable to the measurement of innovation performance of employees 

(graduate students within five years of graduation). 

For the measurement of digital competency, refer to the six dimensions proposed by Xu and Liu (2022). 

Among them, the digital public service capability is not consistent with the actual situation of business 

graduate graduates working in the enterprise and commercial background selected in this study, so it is 

deleted. It retains five dimensions: digital tool operation ability, digital information processing ability, 

digital communication and collaboration ability, digital security management ability, and digital learning 

and innovation ability. 

3.3 Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis 

The descriptive statistics and correlative analysis results of variables in this paper are shown in Table 2. 

The average value of digital education is 4.43, indicating that a considerable part of graduate students in 

the sample have realized the dividends brought by such digital education, and they have also felt such 

discipline construction and reform. The average value of digital competency is 3.11, and the average 



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value of innovation performance is 3.38. At the same time, the mean value of variance inflation factor 

(VIF) is 1.310, and the VIF of each variable is far less than the critical value of 10, indicating that there 

is no serious multicollinearity in this paper, and regression analysis can be performed. 

 

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Variables 

Variables N  Minimum  maximum   Mean   
Standard 

Deviation  
Median  

Sex 271 1.00 2.00 1.70 0.45 2.00 

Age 271 1.00 5.00 3.62 1.12 4.00 

Working tenure 271 1.00 5.00 2.63 0.71 2.00 

Monthly salary 271 1.00 4.00 3.55 0.51 4.00 

Digital education 271 1.68 5.00 4.43 0.75 3.53 

Digital competency 271 1.65 4.33 3.11 0.52 3.00 

Innovation performance 271 1.82 4.93 3.38 0.71 3.41 

 

In addition, the correlation analysis results show (see Table 3) that the correlation value between the 

independent variable digital education and the dependent variable innovation performance is 0.312, and 

the significance is 0.01, indicating that there is a significant positive correlation between digital education 

and innovation performance. The correlation value between digital competency and innovation 

performance is 0.305, and the significance is 0.01 level, which indicates that there is a significant positive 

correlation between digital competency and innovation performance. The correlation coefficient between 

the independent variable digital education and the intermediate variable digital competency is 0.233. It 

shows that there is a significant positive correlation between digital education and digital competency, 

and also indicates that digital education initiatives do promote the improvement of digital competency of 

graduate students. 

 

Table 3. Correlation Analysis Results 

                    1 2 3 

 Digital education  1   

 Digital competency 0.233** 1  

 Innovation performance 0.312** 0.305** 1 

* p<0.05 ** p<0.01 

 

 

 

 



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4. Conclusion 

Based on competency theory and competency-behavior theory, this paper takes Zhejiang Gongshang 

University graduate students (within 5 years of graduation) as research samples to explore the 

relationship between digital education, digital competency and employee innovation performance, and 

draws the following conclusions. 

Various initiatives in digital education have promoted the innovative performance of graduate students. 

Various measures of digital education, including curriculum Settings and teaching methods, have a direct 

effect on the innovative ability of graduate students. Therefore, on the one hand, various measures of 

digital education can directly improve employees’ innovation performance; on the other hand, digital 

competency can indirectly promote employees’ innovation performance by enhancing graduates’ digital 

competency. 

Digital competence can promote employees’ innovative performance. Digital competence includes 

digital tool operation ability, digital information processing ability, digital communication and 

cooperation ability, digital security management ability, digital learning and innovation ability. In the 

context of digital China, digital transformation is a top priority for enterprises. Once employees have 

digital competency, it means that their working ability has been greatly improved, and they can make full 

use of digital technology and carry out innovation, especially the digital learning innovation ability, 

which is directly related to innovation performance. 

 

5. Practical Implications 

According to the research conclusions, the following practical implications are drawn. 

Enterprises should attach importance to improving and cultivating employees’ digital competence. 

Enterprises should pay attention to improving employees’ digital competence, fully improve the breadth 

and depth of digital technology use, and realize the improvement of employees’ innovation performance 

driven by digital technology. For enterprises that have already used digital technology, digital technology 

should be embedded into products, services and management practices to broaden the breadth of 

enterprise use of digital technology, strengthen the depth of digital technology application, further 

improve the digital competency of employees, and thus promote innovation performance. At the same 

time, enterprises should systematize and professionalize the information resources brought by digital 

technology, meet the needs of employees to obtain growth and development resources, create incentives 

and conditions for the improvement of employees’ digital competency, and then enable employees to 

take the initiative in their own jobs to improve innovation performance. For enterprises that have not yet 

used digital technology, they should change their thinking mode, consciously guide enterprises to learn 

to use digital technology, seize the opportunities brought by digital dividends, and use digital technology 

to stimulate and enhance digital competency, thus enhancing innovation performance. In addition, 

enterprises should exchange experience in the use of digital technology, absorb and utilize it in 



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combination with their own development needs, so as to improve the innovative performance of 

employees and even promote the sustainable development of enterprises. 

Postgraduate education should focus on digital education. In the future, the research should focus of 

digital education should mainly focus on innovation and entrepreneurship, digital transformation and 

other fields, and fully integrate the current digital transformation. In order to adapt to the business 

environment and the challenges of global competition in the digital age, graduate students, especially 

those majoring in liberal arts, should take “interdisciplinary comprehensive application ability” as the 

training goal, such as through the combination of management and technology disciplines, to improve 

students’ ability to use modern information technology and management theory to solve practical 

problems. In terms of teaching organization, the teaching forms should be diversified, build a digital 

education platform, make full use of video courses, e-books, contact question banks and interactive tools, 

allocate educational resources according to students’ learning progress and needs, and meet the learning 

needs of students at different levels. Make full use of case discussion, business investigation, enterprise 

internship or practice, fully let students contact with the actual business environment, smooth the 

cooperation mechanism between universities and enterprises, provide guidance for students’ internship, 

graduation design, practical projects, etc., focus on students’ hands-on operation and practical problem 

solving ability training. Education administration departments, industries, universities and other relevant 

parties should cooperate in education, jointly build a training system, broaden resources for the 

cultivation of business graduate talents, enrich students’ learning content and learning methods, and 

promote the improvement of graduate training quality. 

 

6. Limitation and Future Research 

There are some Limitations in this research. 

This paper selects graduate students from Zhejiang Gongshang University as research samples. Although 

differences between schools and majors are controlled, the reference significance for other universities 

and majors remains to be tested. Samples from different schools can be studied in the future to enhance 

the universality of research conclusions. 

This paper only focuses on the impact of digital education on the innovation performance of graduates 

who have not graduated for a long time. In the future, we can further explore the impact of digital 

competency of senior employees on innovation performance, and focus on whether the graduation time 

weakens or enhances this influencing factor. 

This paper only focuses on the mechanism between digital competence and employee innovation 

performance, but does not consider how digital technology can use external resources to promote 

enterprise innovation performance. In the future, the role of cross-border search, external environment 

and other factors can be further expanded. 

 

 



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Acknowledgement 

This article was funded by General Philosophy and society Project of Zhejiang Province: Research on 

the influence mechanism of compensation co-enrichment on innovation performance (No: 

24NDJC136YB). 

 

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