Abstract:

Educators are faced with rapidly changing requirements, which force them to broaden their competences, especially the ubiquitous digital tools. They are both obliged to support trainees in using digital competences, and to develop their own. The field research presented in this paper is the exchange of best practices as part of the ERASMUS+ project “Adult social inclusion in a digital environment” [ASIDE, 2019-1-PL01-KA204-065689]. The project’s aim was to support inclusive education and digital skills, improving the competences in digital social inclusion of social educators and social volunteers. The data was collected in February-April 2020 in the Śląskie Province, Poland using Google Survey forms. The total number of surveys is 130, and the respondents come mainly from adult education centres and training centres from the above-mentioned region. Analysis of the data, collected with respect to the 6 key digital competences of adult educators and learners in the EU, demonstrated that some important action must be taken to make the adult teaching staff better prepared for the new challenges the recent outbreak of the COVID-19 in the Śląskie Province. The majority of the measures are directed towards employers with regard to health protection of their employees and customers. They are to making the pros and cons of ICT competences more visible and to demonstrate the necessity to re-structure the knowledge management in their educational institutions.

The study involved 70 female and 60 male educational trainees working in Social Adult Education, 18-25 years old on average. The research was conducted between February and April 2020 using Google forms. Statistical analysis was conducted using Statistica 13.1 package by Dell Inc.
The research sample consisted in 89.2% of public institution employees, including 92.3% with a bachelors’ degree. For the survey purposes, the Google Forms tool was used to create an online questionnaire, which was then distributed by means of hyperlinks. The results obtained with Google Forms were transferred to Statistica 13 software. The questionnaire used closed single-choice questions, hierarchy questions as well as open questions based on the 6 key digital competences of adult educators and learners in the EU. For the purpose of data analysis, descriptive statistics and quantitative techniques were used. To test the hypothesis that two qualitative traits in the population are independent, a χ2 test was used to compare the ratios observed with expected frequencies.

Keywords:

Management, education, ICT, teaching.