International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence, 5(4), 19-32, October-December 2014 19 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to determine ICT literacy levels using a situated approach, targeting the functional understanding of technical terms contained in digital everyday culture texts. A cohort of 70 frst year un- dergraduate Education students participated in the study. The assessment task included writing defnitions for 47 technical terms which were derived from a series of digital texts, such as songs and advertisements. Students’ defnitions were evaluated using a simple rating scale. Results indicated that for two-thirds of the terms examined students’ understanding ranged from medium to high. On the other hand, students’ under- standing of the remaining one-third of the terms was either poor or minimal. Furthermore, the correlation of students’ understanding of the terms with student’s self-reported familiarity with software applications was low to moderate. The paper is concluded with a discussion of the potential of using popular cultural texts as an alternative approach for assessing levels of functional ICT literacy. The Use of Digital Texts as an Alternative Method of Determining Functional ICT Literacy Levels Ilias Karasavvidis, Department of Preschool Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece Sevasti Theodosiou, Department of Preschool Education, University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece Keywords: Digital Competence, Digital Texts, Functional Understanding, ICT Literacy, Measurement 1. INTRODUCTION Literacy has always been historically, contex- tually, and culturally situated. In older times, a literate person was someone who could read and write. Today, a literate person is expected to have mastered a completely different set of skills, compared to a person who lived in earlier historical times (e.g. the middle ages). As the cultural, social, and economic conditions change over time, so does the notion of the skill set that constitutes literacy. To a large extent, the term literacy defines the knowledge and skills that are a precondition for the effective participa- tion of individuals in contemporary culture. By definition, an illiterate person is excluded from participating in various aspects of social life. As an essential precondition for the full DOI: 10.4018/ijdldc.2014100102