Differences in basic digital competences between male and female university students of Social Sciences in Spain

Abstract

This article analyses the differences in basic digital competences of male and female university students on Social Education, Social Work and Pedagogy courses. The study of gender differences in university students' acquisition of digital competence has considerable didactic and strategic consequences for the development of these skills. The study was carried out at two public universities in Spain (UNEDthe National Distance-Learning University, and the Universidad Pablo de Olavide) on a sample of 923 students, who responded to a questionnaire entitled "University Students' Basic Digital Competences 2.0" (COBADIregistered at the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office). The research applied a quantitative methodology based on a Bayesian approach using multinomial joint distribution as prior distribution. The use of Bayes factors also offers advantages with respect to the use of frequentist p-values, like the generation of information on the alternative hypothesis, that the evidence is not dependent on the sample size used. The results show that men have greater perceived competence in digital cartography and online presentations, whereas women prefer to request personal tutorials to resolve doubts about technology and have greater perceived competence in corporate emailing. There is also evidence that the men have greater perceived competence in developing "online presentations" than women do. Regarding to, "Interpersonal competences in the use of ICT at university", we observed that the female students opted for personal sessions with tutors in greater numbers than the male students did.

El uso del Ambiente Virtual de Aprendizaje entre el profesorado de educación superior: un análisis de género

“…Nuestro trabajo apunta con claridad a que la brecha digital de género se está reduciendo, y podríamos decir que, no existe en el contexto de formación universitario estudiado. Hecho que está en consonancia con los resultados encontrados en las últimas investigaciones donde el género del docente no es predictor de la frecuencia de utilización de las tecnologías (Chou, Wu & Chen 2011;Güdüz & İşman, 2018;Lohbeck, Hagenauer & Frenzel, 2018;Ríos, Gómez & Priscilla, 2018); resultados que también empiezan a encontrarse entre estudiantes universitarios (Vázquez-Cano, Meneses & García-Garzón, 2017). Estos resultados llevan a plantearnos dos aspectos: por una parte, la necesidad de seguir estableciendo planes de formación de profesorado para la utilización de las TIC (Kafyulilo, et al 2016;Villalba, González-Rivera & Diaz-Pulido, 2017), y por otra, la necesidad de que la misma se enfoque desde planteamientos diferentes a los que se han llevado hasta el momento .…”

“…En particular el género ha resultado ser una variable particularmente influyente para medir el grado de aceptación y para determinar la intención de uso de las TIC en la enseñanza (Asiri, 2012;Cabero, Sampedro y Gallego, 2016;Tsai y Tsai 2010;Wong, Teo & Russo, 2012), tanto que las investigaciones sobre las posibles diferencias de género en el uso y adopción de las tecnología en el contexto educativo, se ha disparado desde principios de siglo (United Nations 2014;OCDE, 2010;Tüfekçi, 2008;Vázquez-Cano, Meneses, & García-Garzón, 2017).…”

Exploration of Youth’s Digital Competencies: A Dataset in the Educational Context of Vietnam

“…In general, a higher level of self-efficiency is associated with a better level of self-perceived digital competencies [16]. Regarding gender, there are differences in the basic digital competencies of male and female university students [17]. Drawing on the dataset, we present potential research questions in the following list.…”

Digital Culture of University Students: Analysis of Future Economists and Managers

“…Other aspects of study of digital competence include study of the influence of various demographic (most often genderrelated) characteristics on digital competences. For example, [14,15] focused on the gender aspects of digital competences of university students. Another study on the implementation of infocommunication technologies by universities in Saudi Arabia and its impact on student performance [16] also considered gender aspects.…”