Learning to become a tutor: Experiences of adults with intellectual disabilities in peer tutoring for digital skills.

Abstract

Societies are digitalizing services with a rapid speed. As a result, people, such as adults with disabilities, are at risk of being excluded if they lack appropriate digital skills and have few possibilities to get support in learning these skills. Peer tutoring is seen as an effective way to learn these skills according to research done on peer tutoring with older adults and immigrants, but there remains a gap in research with adults with intellectual disabilities and their preferences for digital skills learning. This article focuses on the experiences of Finnish adults with intellectual disabilities in digital skills peer tutoring courses they attended. The data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews via Teams with ten participants. The results indicate that digital skills training activities supported the peer-tutor trainees' learning, their skills to support others with technology use, and their social inclusion in Finland's digitalized society.