Developing a digital competence scale for teachers: validity and reliability study

Abstract

Teachers’ digital competence is very significant in terms of integrating digital technologies into the education process. This study aims to develop an up-to-date scale that can determine the digital competencies required for teachers to acquire new skills that arise with the change and development of technology and use them in educational environments. A total of 695 teachers participated in the study. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine the construct validity of the scale. To assess the discrimination index of the items, the lower 27% and upper 27% groups were determined, and the differences between the groups were examined. Internal consistency coefficients were calculated for the reliability analysis. According to the results of the analysis, the developed scale consists of six factors and 46 items, and the Cronbach Alpha coefficient of the entire scale is 0.975. The factors were identified as “Safety,“ “Data Literacy,“ “Problem Solving,“ “Digital Content Creation,“ “Communication and Collaboration,“ and “Ethics,“ respectively, according to the content of the items. When compared with the DigComp 2.1 framework developed by the European Union, it was determined that the ethical factor emerged differently in this study. As a result, it can be said that the Digital Competency Scale for Teachers is a valid and reliable scale that can be used to measure teachers’ digital competencies.

Development and Validation of the Teachers’ Digital Competence Scale (TDiCoS)

“…This framework's competence indicators are thus not transferable to a country with different demographics and socioeconomic conditions. Furthermore, contrary to previous studies that suggested quite long (e.g., Alarcón et al, 2020;Gümüş & Kukul, 2022) instruments, the TDiCoS proposes a comprehensive model of unidimensional and 19 items, providing a practical and easy-to-use instrument for future research on teachers' digital competence. The person who will administer TDiCoS does not need any training.…”

“…Several studies have used the DigComp framework to develop scales. With teachers from various disciplines in Turkey (Gümüş & Kukul, 2022;Toker et al, 2021) and Spain (Alarcón et al, 2020). The digital competence level can be determined based on the overall score gained on this scale.…”

“…When addressing the digital competence of teachers, various factors must be considered, including their social, cultural, educational, and ethical natures. Many scales have also been developed to measure teachers' digital competences (Alarcón, Jimenez, & Vicente-Yagüe, 2020;Gümüş & Kukul, 2022;Lucas, Bem-Haja, Siddiq, Moreira, & Redecker, 2021;Toker, Akgün, Cömert, & Edip, 2021). It is suggested that future research should determine the similarities and differences among the digital competence models, frameworks, and strategies (Sillat, Tammets, & Laanpere, 2021).…”

Which is the Digital Competence of Each Member of Educational Community to Use the Computer? Which Predictors Have a Greater Influence?

“…In its application, the maximum likelihood method by oblimin rotation was selected. Throughout the process, several criteria were taken into consideration with the purpose of selecting those items which create a satisfactory model: those items with symmetry and kurtosis values in the range ± 1 were selected (Pérez & Medrano, 2010 ), it was also discarded those items with coefficients less than 0.4 in relation to the homogeneity index, the selection of factors with eigenvalues greater than one (Gümüş & Kuku, 2022 ).…”

Digital Teaching Competence and lecturers Self-Efficacy in OnlineClasses: Insights from Public Universities in Uganda

“…Digital competence refers to the ability to use technology as it advances, changes and renews itself (Gümüş & Kukul, 2022). Teachers' digital competence involves a special dynamism, including the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to accomplish tasks using digital devices (Hämäläinen et al, 2021).…”