Abstract:

The continuous and rapid technological advances of our era require digital competence to be an essential aspect in our personal and professional lives. While educators play a critical role in the digital transformation of education and in facilitating learners’ digital competence, supporting the development of their own digital competence remains a challenge for many education systems.

The European framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) provides a conceptual background of what digital competence means for educators. It describes 22 competences under six areas and provides a progression model with six proficiency levels (Redecker, 2017). Based on this framework, the CheckIn self-assessment tool was developed in 2018 to guide educators’ reflections on their digital competence. Upon submitting their reflections, educators receive a personalised feedback report providing results and suggestions on how to level up, based on their identified strengths and gaps. Thus, the CheckIn tool supports educators’ reflection upon their digital competence to design appropriate learning routes for their continuous professional development.

The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the CheckIn tool results collected between March 2018 and January 2022 in relation to the framework’s six proficiency levels (A1-Newcomer, A2-Explorer, B1-Integrator, B2-Expert, C1-Leader, C2-Pioneer).

Overall, CheckIn was available to four education levels (Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), Primary-Secondary Education, Higher Education and Adult Education) and 124,996 educators responded to it. The results of the study indicate that the majority of educators self-assess their digital competence as Explorers (A2), Integrators (B1) and Experts (B2), while the least number of them as Pioneers (C2) and Leaders (C1). When broken down by educational level, academics in Higher Education claim to have the highest competence, while ECEC professionals the lowest. Related to the six competence areas in all educational levels, respondents’ self-assessment showed that they considered themselves more competent in “Professional engagement” and “Empowering learners”, apart from Higher Education where the area of “Teaching and learning” was also considered of high competence. On the other hand, respondents considered having the lowest level of competence in “Facilitating learners’ digital competence”, apart from those in Adult Education who considered “Assessment” as their lowest.

The data also enabled a comparison between educator’s self-perception by answering two questions: one in the beginning and one in the end of CheckIn. The comparison identified that, on average, educators who initially indicated their competence was in levels A1 or A2 tended to underestimate themselves based on the CheckIn results, while those who initially perceived their competence level as C1 or C2 mostly overestimated themselves. Finally, further analyses were performed to identify differences by educational level, gender, age and the year in which the reflections were performed, which provide additional insights on how educators’ perceive their digital competence on which further research can build on.

Keywords:

DigCompEdu, professional learning, professional development, self-reflection, self-assessment, education, teaching and learning, educators’ digital competence.