Evaluation of the teachers’ digital competences in primary and secondary education in Portugal with DigCompEdu CheckIn in pandemic times

Abstract

The current pandemic crisis the world is living in has brought new and emerging challenges to teachers, making it essential to acquire digital skills, especially in virtual learning environments and online technologies. In this sense, from the DigCompEdu CheckIn self-assessment questionnaire, validated for the Portuguese population by Dias-Trindade, Moreira, and Nunes (2019), the research presented in this paper aims to identify the most fragile and robust areas of digital skills of primary and secondary education (ISCED) perceived by teachers in Portugal. The quantitative methodological approach emphasizes teachers' perception of their digital skills in three dimensions: teachers’ professional competences, teachers’ pedagogical competences and students' competences and involved 434 teachers from mainland Portugal and the Autonomous Regions. The results allow us to conclude that teachers have an overall moderate level of digital proficiency – level B1 - Integrators – and the dimensions pedagogical competences and students’ competences are those where teachers have more weaknesses than in other levels. From a panorama observed before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible to understand their needs regarding work that involves digital technologies at different moments in the teaching activity. The results thus, show the need for teachers to increase their level of digital competence through specific training and the importance of developing public policies that prepare teachers for a more digital school.

Comparison of the teaching of digital competences between health science faculties in Andalusia and Catalonia

“…7,8 However, the scientific literature tends to focus on digital competences among students who will become teachers or current teachers in the field of education, such as future teachers, 9 primary school teachers 10 or secondary school teachers. 11 However, it also concerns other teachers who will work as specialists at higher education institutions. These teachers are not in a faculty of education, so digital competences should have a broader framework across all fields of knowledge, such as foreign language teachers 12 or health sciences teachers in Andalusian universities.…”

Evaluación de la Competencia Digital Docente: instrumentos, resultados y propuestas. Revisión sistemática de la literatura

“…Los 17 estudios restantes han utilizado un instrumento ya validado. Concretamente, los instrumentos que han sido utilizados por más investigadores son: el instrumento DigCompEdu Check-In de Redecker y Punie (2017) en seis estudios Dias-Trindade & Moreira, 2020;Dias-Trindade et al, 2021;Karunaweera et al, 2021;Torres Barzabal et Como es lógico, no se ha encontrado ningún estudio publicado que elabore o adapte una herramienta o utilice una ya validada que no cumpla los parámetros de validación y fiabilidad establecidos en la investigación educativa.…”

Teaching during the Pandemic: An Exploratory Study in Portuguese and Brazilian Secondary Education Teachers

“…Knowing one's digital competences and being able to make effective use of digital tools for social participation, working together involving communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills [27,28], is an early stage in the evolutionary process of what it means to be digitally competent. This stage, of digital literacy, of knowing what to do with what resources to achieve goals, can evolve towards achieving digital fluency, that is, mastering a whole set of other skills, such as the ability to go beyond critical thinking to create new knowledge and face new challenges [29][30][31].…”

“…Dias-Trindade and Ferreira [31] also argue that digital teacher competences refer to -the ability to work in digital environments, associating the pedagogical component with the technological and digital component‖ and that this same digital competence -should materialize in the ability to mobilize knowledge and attitudes for an effective use of digital technology in a professional context‖ (p. 169). In line with this idea, Ota and Dias-Trindade [32] warns about the need to consider digital competence in the creation of quality educational environments, from the perspective of inclusion of all, so that the digital can assist in the development of teaching and learning practices and a whole educational ecosystem of high quality.…”