Study on the personal indicators that influence the development of digital competence in primary education students

Resumen

This paper falls within the framework of broader research on the assessment of the digital competences of students in their final years of primary education. Based on the multidimensional nature of digital competence, we can state that its development is influenced by that there are several factors. Among them, we would like to highlight social and family indicators. According to the "Assessment framework" developed from the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (Fraillon, Schulz & Ainley, 2013), these indicators can be classified into four factors: personal indicators, family/household indicators, school indicators and contextual/community indicators. This work focuses on personal variables based on their importance and because, as many studies report, these variables have a direct impact on the acquisition, development and use of digital competences. Thus, we focus on personal variables such as students’ age, gender, the first time they used a computer and the Internet, their perception of ICT usage in their daily lives and in the teaching and learning process, their digital self-efficacy and the frequency with which they use ICT resources (both at home and for school activities). The method consists of a descriptive study based on a documentary review of studies on the topic that provide data to extract information on the most decisive indicators of the acquisition of these competences. The purpose of this is to design a problem-solving based instrument intended to allow teachers and researchers to assess students’ real digital competence at this stage and to improve the teaching process and practices in this area.