Abstract:

The widespread use of technology in daily life, and particularly in education, increasingly influences both the self-perception of Information and Communication Technology skills and teachers’ digital competence, to an extent that it is reasonable to state that the digital skills difference between men and women is becoming less significant. This study aims to analyze if there are gender differences in the pedagogical use of the Moodle platform, by conducting surveys among a population of 640 teachers from a technical professional higher education institution in Chile. The study of gender differences has been conducted through a statistical analysis based on a significance test of null hypothesis and the gender variable has been analyzed in a decontextualized manner, without taking into account the interactions that they could have with other variables. Since the beginning, the results obtained, although they show a difference in the proportion of use that favors male teachers, the specific analysis related to the frequency of use, specific use of tools, organized materials, or developed activities do not express significant differences from a statistical viewpoint between male and female teachers. Ultimately, focusing on the specific purpose of our study, we notice that in relation to the pedagogical use and the use of different Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) tools, there are no significant differences between the male and female teachers surveyed. The absence of significant differences in technical and pedagogical skills and the self-assessment of VLE knowledge between male and female teachers, confirm which has already been anticipated by the literature, toward an equality of digital skills and competence and an increase in the perception of skills from women, a change that is confirmed in our study. The study leads us to point out the break with belief, and with it the social imaginary created, regarding the existence differences in the use of ICT in general and Internet in particular, among teachers according to their gender. The teachers they already perceive them as useful tools for the training process of their students, and therefore the training actions that are carried out, should not be differentiated for both groups.

Keywords:

Digital skills, digital gender gap, VLE, Higher education.