Teachers' perceptions of digital competence at the lifelong learning stage

Heliyon. 2021 Jul 8;7(7):e07513. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07513. eCollection 2021 Jul.

Abstract

In recent years, the educational landscape has been in a period of constant change due to the advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). As a result, training in digital competence has become one of the challenges to be met by the teaching staff, in order to incorporate these skills into their professional practice. As a result of this, the present work aimed to analyse the level of digital competence presented by a sample of 140 teachers of the Lifelong Learning stage in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain). To this end, a transversal methodological design of a quantitative nature was advocated, based on the configuration of an ad hoc questionnaire developed from the European conceptual frameworks on teaching digital competence. The results showed that the level shown by teachers is low, especially in terms of creation, information literacy and problem solving, although they did show optimal skills in communication and collaboration of digital content. The findings also determined the importance of factors such as age, teacher training and school type in further developing this compendium of skills.

Keywords: Digital competence; ICT; Lifelong learning stage; Permanent education; Teacher training.