Study About the Perception of Basic Digital Competences of Students of a Chilean University

Abstract

Digital competences have long been of interest to many authors, for this reason, this paper shows the results of a survey applied to students of a Chilean university. Students were asked about their digital competencies in five dimensions, the first dimension is about their general knowledge and technological skills, the second about the use of ICT in everyday life, the third about their specialized skills for working and creative expression, the fourth about communication and technology-mediated collaboration, and the fifth, the way the manage and process information. Categories of their competences levels were created according to the score they obtained. They are Low, Low Intermediate, High Intermediate and High. As a result, the data showed that the students had lower scores in the first dimension, general knowledge and technological skills (average 2.70%), and in the third dimension, specialized skills for working and creative expression (average 2.87%). The highest averages students obtained were in the fifth dimension, management and processing information (52.5%), and in the second dimension, use of ICT in everyday life (22.5%). As a conclusion, the mere presence of technological resources in universities and the high capacity of students are not enough to develop the digital competence in students. Furthermore, because this was a study about perception, and several studies indicate that students are optimistic about their abilities, it follows that the basic digital skills of the students observed may be lower than the one indicated in the study. Therefore, it is suggested to create an instrument that evaluates their basic digital competences and confront their results with those presented here. INTRODUCTION Many authors have investigated the basic digital competences that a person has; the approaches that addressed the topics have also varied, so we will present a review of important studies and their approaches. The first approach has to do with comparing what is known as digital migrants, for which the authors Román-García, Almansa-Martínez and Cruz-Díaz (2016) conducted a study with adults (18-55 years) and older adults (+55 years) to whom they applied an instrument, in total 174 people from Andalusia Spain. The results were interesting, the study indicates that adults with age range between 18 and 30 years present a better level of media competence in technical skills related to instrumental use, interaction and language, whereas from the 30 they increase the skills in Critical and participatory dimensions, such as reflection, analysis and creation. In addition, they found that the digital skills of adults over 55 years are directly related to their level of income, this means that a person over 55 years old has a good level in digital skills as long as their economic level is also.

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TurkishOnlineJournalof
EducationalTechnology

SpecialIssueforINTE2017
November2017

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



Prof.Dr.Aytekinİşman
Editor‐in‐Chief

Prof.Dr.JerryWILLIS‐STJohnFisherUniversityinRochester,USA
Prof.Dr.J.AnaDonaldson‐AECTPresident
Editors

Assist.Prof.Dr.FahmeDABAJ‐EasternMediterraneanUniversity,TRNC
AssociateEditor

Assoc.Prof.Dr.EricZhi‐FengLiu‐NationalCentralUniversity,Taiwan
AssistantEditor




TOJET
01.11.2017
ISSN2146‐7242

THE
TURKISH ONLINE
JOURNAL
OF
EDUCATIONAL
TECHNOLOGY
November 2017
Special Issue for INTE 2017
Prof. Dr. Aytekin İşman
Editor-in-Chief
Editors
Prof. Dr. Jerry Willis
Prof. Dr. J. Ana Donaldson
Associate Editor
Assist. Prof. Dr. Fahme Dabaj
Assistant Editor
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Eric Zhi - Feng Liu
ISSN: 2146 - 7242
Indexed by
Education Resources Information Center – ERIC
SCOPUS - ELSEVIER

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South Korean University Students’ Views of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning
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Status and Improvement of Human Rights Education for Police in Korea
Chong, SANGWOO, Kang, EUNYEONG, Han, HWAERYEON
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Students’ Game Playing Preferences And Personality Traits
Simon SO
1014
Study About the Perception of Basic Digital Competences of Students of a Chilean University
Lagunes Domínguez AGUSTIN, Judikis Preller Juan CARLOS, Torres Gastelú Carlos ARTURO, Flores
García María ALICIA
1023

Study About the Perception of Basic Digital Competences of Students of a Chilean
University
Lagunes Domínguez AGUSTIN
Universidad Veracruzana, México,
aglagunes@uv.mx
Judikis Preller Juan CARLOS
Universidad de Magallanes, Chile,
juan.judikis@umag.cl
Torres Gastelú Carlos ARTURO
Universidad Veracruzana, México,
ctorres@uv.mx
Flores García María ALICIA
Universidad Veracruzana, México,
maflores@uv.mx
ABSTRACT
Digital competences have long been of interest to many authors, for this reason, this paper shows the results of a
survey applied to students of a Chilean university. Students were asked about their digital competencies in five
dimensions, the first dimension is about their general knowledge and technological skills, the second about the use of
ICT in everyday life, the third about their specialized skills for working and creative expression, the fourth about
communication and technology-mediated collaboration, and the fifth, the way the manage and process information.
Categories of their competences levels were created according to the score they obtained. They are Low, Low
Intermediate, High Intermediate and High.
As a result, the data showed that the students had lower scores in the first dimension, general knowledge and
technological skills (average 2.70%), and in the third dimension, specialized skills for working and creative
expression (average 2.87%). The highest averages students obtained were in the fifth dimension, management and
processing information (52.5%), and in the second dimension, use of ICT in everyday life (22.5%).
As a conclusion, the mere presence of technological resources in universities and the high capacity of students are
not enough to develop the digital competence in students. Furthermore, because this was a study about perception,
and several studies indicate that students are optimistic about their abilities, it follows that the basic digital skills of
the students observed may be lower than the one indicated in the study. Therefore, it is suggested to create an
instrument that evaluates their basic digital competences and confront their results with those presented here.
Key words: Competences, Digital competences, Students
INTRODUCTION
Many authors have investigated the basic digital competences that a person has; the approaches that addressed the
topics have also varied, so we will present a review of important studies and their approaches. The first approach has
to do with comparing what is known as digital migrants, for which the authors Román-García, Almansa-Martínez
and Cruz-Díaz (2016) conducted a study with adults (18-55 years) and older adults (+55 years) to whom they applied
an instrument, in total 174 people from Andalusia Spain. The results were interesting, the study indicates that adults
with age range between 18 and 30 years present a better level of media competence in technical skills related to
instrumental use, interaction and language, whereas from the 30 they increase the skills in Critical and participatory
dimensions, such as reflection, analysis and creation. In addition, they found that the digital skills of adults over 55
years are directly related to their level of income, this means that a person over 55 years old has a good level in
digital skills as long as their economic level is also.
Other studies focus on a different generation of students to check their digital skills, such as the authors Pérez-
Escoda, Castro-Zubizarreta and Fandos-Igado (2016) who, through a study of 678 students of Primary Education, try
to show that the students of the generation Z already have this ability. The results reveal that they do not inherently
acquire digital skills, but need education in this regard, noting the danger of a digital division, not by use or access to
them, but by lack of competitiveness. The absence of a significant difference in the general level of digital
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1023

competence among the students of different courses of Primary Education reflects that, to some extent, this level is
acquired more by coexistence with ICT in informal contexts than by an adequate development in the school context
that gradually and gradually enhances their acquisition. That is, it is not inherent to Generation Z, but they are
acquiring competence informally.
In a similar way, the authors Fernández-Cruz and Fernández-Díaz (2016) carry out a study where they indicate that
the mere presence of technological resources in the centers and the high capacities of the Generation Z students are
not sufficient to develop in the students the digital competence. They indicate that the fundamental key is determined
by the technological and pedagogical competences of teachers, that is, that teachers are the most important factor for
primary and secondary students to acquire digital skills. Therefore, they applied an instrument in 80 schools And
1,433 teachers, the results were revealing, 36.85% had a "Bad" profile and 9.56% "Very bad", that is, a total of
46.31% of teachers have a negative profile in terms of Their ICT training in the educational world, then they directly
affect the development of digital competence of Generation Z students.
Other studies that refer to teachers, such as Morales-Arce (2013) who writes about the support that is given to the
Digital Abilities for All program for the development of digital skills in Mexican teachers. Likewise, the authors
García López et al. (2012) carried out an investigation with teachers of secondary education in Mexico, with the
purpose of identifying the levels of acquisition of the digital competences of teachers. The study took into
consideration five dimensions: knowledge and skills in the Web, organization in format Digital, use of digital tools
or devices for communication, electronic search and design of digital educational resources. The results reveal that
most teachers have greater mastery of the organizational dimension in digital format and the one that less dominate
and require a training course is in the design of digital educational resources. That is, teachers remain in debt to
students to help them develop their digital skills.
The study by Hatlevik, Ottestad and Throndsen (2015) conducted in Norway for seventh grade students, teachers and
educational managers, as well as Fernandez-Cruz and Fernández-Díaz (2016), show that the higher level of managers
and teachers the more is the level of digital skills in students. Finally, let us talk about university students, as well as
this research, authors Castellanos-Sánchez, Sánchez-Romero and Calderero Hernández (2017) carry out research
with new students to the university. They applied an instrument to 301 students with 29 items, and the results show
the predominance of students over 30 years of age, female, who have a computer with Internet connection. It also
shows that student´s favorite means to interact is the telephone, surf daily and use e-mail, basic technologies,
especially the office suite, and are not familiar with the use of current tools such as blogs or social bookmarks. It is
concluded, that these students do not share the expected qualities of a digital native: produce, disseminate and
consume culture through the Internet. That is, they do not have the digital competence that would be thought the
students of this generation. In agreement with Castellanos-Sánchez, Sánchez-Romero and Calderero-Hernández
(2017) this research group has carried out an investigation in a university of the Chilean Patagonia applying a
perception instrument to the students of new entrance of Pedagogy to determine their level of Digital competition.
THE STUDY
For this study, new students of Pedagogy were invited, being a probabilistic study, each student decided whether to
accept the invitation, they were asked to answer their study of perception, 40 students accepted to participate.
The instrument was a questionnaire with five dimensions, the first dimension is about their general knowledge about
ICT, the second on the use of ICT in their daily lives, the third on their specialized skills for work and creative
expression, the fourth about technology-mediated communication and collaboration, and fifth, how they manage and
process information. This instrument had 48 items and applied through the survey technique.
To facilitate the application of the instrument and to give reliability, it was programmed in PHP with the MySql
Database Management System, it was preregistered to the participating students, because the instrument is closed
and to respond it is necessary to log in first, It was validated that each student could only respond on one occasion.
The Cronbach alpha for the items corresponding to the basic digital competence is 0.825 (Zúñiga, Edel and Lau,
2016).
It should be noted that this instrument was taken from the authors Zúñiga, Edel and Lau (2016) who applied this
same in the Faculty of Pedagogy of the Veracruzana University in Mexico.
The instrument is of perception so the answers were multiple choice and the options were as follows:
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1024

A) "Yes and I would explain." (If you think, you know how to do the action without difficulty and you
could explain it to another person).
B). "Yes". (To indicate that you can perform the action without difficulty).
C). "Yes, but with help." (If you have difficulty doing it yourself, but you can do it with the help of another
person). D) "No". (If you think, you do not know how to carry out the proposed action)
For option a) "Yes and I would be able to explain," a numeric value of four was assigned,
for b) "Yes" was assigned three,
c) "Yes, but with help" value 2 and
d) "No" value 1.
According to the score obtained by the students, the categories of their competence level were created: Very Low,
Low, Low Intermediate, High Intermediate and High, the way in which the classification was performed is the
following:
Level
Minimum
Maximum
Very low
1.00
1.99
Low
2.00
2.50
Low intermediate
2.51
2.99
High intermediate
3.00
3.50
High
3.51
4.00
Table 1. Determination of levels.
In each case, the scores were considered to get an average of the score obtained in the five dimensions, and the, it
was calculated to be able to locate them in one of the levels indicated in Table 1.
The results are shown in the next section.
FINDINGS
Before starting with the analysis of results it is necessary to remember the scale of qualification for each question,
where four could be obtained if the participant answered that he could carry out the activity and could explain it to
another person and one if he did not know how to do it activity. Therefore, we will show scatterplots where students
will be surveyed in each of the categories with grades 1 to 4 and finally, we will show the general results and the
levels that they obtained. Let us start with the first dimension, which can be seen in Figure 1.
Figure 1. First dimension on basic digital skills.
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
1. General knowledge about ICT
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1025

As can be seen in Figure 1 on the general knowledge about ICT, there are students with very low grades, there are
five students with scores below two, that is, with a Very Low level, and another 10 between 2 and 2.5 With low
level. On the other hand, only three students are at a High level. In this dimension, the lowest rating was 1.70, the
average 2.70 and the highest rating 3.70.
Figure 2. Second dimension on basic digital skills.
In the dimension of the use of ICT in daily life, the results are more concentrated, Figure 2 indicates that the results
of the students are closer to the average. The minimum rating was 2.10 well above the minimum of the first category,
and the average is 3.50. It is the time the highest rating was four. The results show that 75% are below average, 2.5%
on average and 22.5% above average.
Figure 3. Third Dimension on Basic Digital Skills.
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
4,50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
2. Use of ICT in everyday life
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
4,50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
3. Specialized skills for work and creative
expression
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1026

As for specialized skills for work, the highest score remains at 4, the lowest score falls much to 1.63 being the lowest
of the analyzed dimensions and making the average also lower to 2.87 as seen in the Figure 3. The good news in this
dimension is that 50% of students are above average, 5% on average and 45% below average.
Figure 4. Fourth dimension on basic digital skills.
Like the dimension of ICT use in daily life, this dimension has very concentrated ratings as shown in Figure 4,
although it does not have a grade of 4, the results are between 2.10 and 3.70, with an average of 3.04. It should be
noted that the most frequent qualification is 2.60 with six students who obtained this qualification. Likewise, 55% of
students were above average and 45% below average.
Figure 5. Fifth dimension on basic digital skills.
In this last dimension on information management and processing, Figure 5 shows that it is the first dimension where
there is more than one student with 4 grades, with 3 students who obtain it. Regarding the major and minor
qualifications, evidently the highest was four, while the lowest was 1.90 and the average 3.18, if we look at the
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
4. Technology-mediated communication and
collaboration
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
4,50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
5. Management and processing of information
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1027

results of the four previous dimensions we will see that this dimension has the highest average of the whole test
Applied. As for the average, above average is 52.5% of students while 47.5% are below average.
To finalize this analysis of results, Graph 6 is presented with the general results of the students assigning the levels
established in Table 1.
Figure 6. General results by levels.
Figure 6 clearly shows that the trend is toward an intermediate level, that is, from High Intermediate to Low
Intermediate and then to Low. When this research was started it was hypothesized that students would be between
Intermediate High and High, but this is not so.
CONCLUSIONS
As a first conclusion we have the dimension with the lowest qualification is the third "Skills specialized for work and
creative expression" with 1.63, followed by the first dimension "General knowledge about ICT" with 1.70.
The second conclusion is that the lowest average dimension is the first "General Knowledge about ICT" with 2.70,
followed by the third dimension "Specialized skills for work and creative expression" with 2.87.
The third conclusion is taken from the previous two, the dimension where the students had the lowest results is the
first "General knowledge about ICT" and the next low dimension is the third "Skills specialized for work and
creative expression", This means that these two dimensions are the ones that must work to improve in the students.
The fourth conclusion refers to the highest averages, where the fifth dimension "Management and processing of
information" with 3.18 and has the highest average followed by the second dimension "Use of ICT in everyday life"
with 3.15.
As a fifth conclusion, the dimension in which students left the better is the fifth one because it has a higher average
of 3.18 and above the average is 52.5% of the students while, while the second dimension "Use of ICT In everyday
life "with 3.15 on average only has 22.5% above.
The sixth conclusion is that the students are at an intermediate level in terms of their basic digital competences, being
expected to be at an Intermediate High and High level.
Finally a general conclusion, as this was a test of perception, and several studies indicate that students are optimistic
as far as their abilities, it is possible to conclude that basic digital competences of the Chilean students of this
university are lower than the ones they say the have. Being aware of the fact, the authors suggest developing an
instrument that evaluates their basic digital competencies and confront their results with those presented here.
0,00%
7,50%
40,00%
50,00%
2,50%
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
Very Low Low Low
intermediate
High
intermediate
High
General results by levels
TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – November 2017, Special Issue for INTE 2017
Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology
1028

Castellanos-Sánchez, A., Sánchez-Romero, C., & Calderero-Hernández, J. F. (2017). Nuevos modelos
tecnopedagógicos. Competencia digital de los alumnos universitarios. Revista Electrónica de Investigación
Educativa, 19(1), 1-10.
Fernández-Cruz, F.-J., & Fernández-Díaz, M.-J. (2016). Los docentes de la Generación Z y sus competencias
digitales. Comunicar, XXIV(46), 97-105.
García-López, R. I., Mendívil-Arredondo, A.-M., Ocaña-Soto, M.-I., Ramírez-Rivera, C. A., & Angulo-Armenta, J.
(2012). Competencias digitales en maestros de escuelas de educación media superior privadas. Apertura, 4(2),
1-15.
Hatlevik, O. E., Ottestad, G., & Throndsen, I. (2015). Predictors of digital competence in 7th grade: a multilevel
analysis. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning(31), 220-231.
Morales-Arce, V. G. (2013). Desarrollo de competencias digitales docentes en la educación básica. Apertura, 5(1), 1-
13.
Pérez-Escoda, A., Castro-Zubizarreta, A., & Fandos-Igado, M. (2016). Digital Skills in the Z Generation: Key
Questions for a Curricular Introduction in Primary School. XXIV(49), 71-79.
Román-García, S., Almansa-Martínez, A., & Cruz-Díaz, M.-d.-R. (2016). Adults and Elders and their use of ICTs
Media Competence of Digital Immigrants. Comunicar, XXIV(49), 101-109.
REFERENCES
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