Comparison of Digital Technology Competencies among Mexican and Spanish Secondary Education Students

Omar Cuevas-Salazar,Imelda García-López,Lizzeth Navarro-Ibarra,Joel Angulo-Armenta

doi:10.5539/ies.v9n9p199

Omar Cuevas-Salazar, Imelda García-López + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/ies.v9n9p199

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Abstract

<p class="apa">Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are tools to be used to support educational processes and students have access to them more and more every day. However this does not assure the appropriate use of these tools. That is why the objective of the present study is to identify the level of competency in the use of ICT of students in secondary schools in Obregon City, Sonora, Mexico, in the opinions of the students themselves and of their teachers and to compare this with the level of digital competencies of students in some regions of Spain, using an investigation carried out earlier. Two questionnaires with 51 questions were used, one for 949 students and the other for 49 teachers. The results show that students claim to have between moderately and very high levels of competence in ICT skills while their teachers say the students have high levels of competence in some technological skills such as producing a written documents with a word processor. In the study in Spain, students and teachers voiced similar averages in the highest level of competencies, but differed in the competencies with the lowest averages.</p>

Highlights

Throughout history changes have been notable and in many cases have had an impact on the development of society
Due to the accelerated development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had, they play a part in most activities carried out by man, presenting new needs in entertainment and up-dating due to the fact that not everyone has a high enough level of informatics competencies, which differentiates between those who know how to use ICT and those who do not
The results showed that students needed to develop skills applicable to the use of Internet, for example, using programs for instant messaging and published contents on the Web, but above all, their basic skill in the use of ICT for creating a text, installing and uninstalling software and making a Power Point presentation (Valencia, Torres, Angulo, & García, 2012)

Summary

Introduction

Throughout history changes have been notable and in many cases have had an impact on the development of society. There have been countless novelties in the creation of ideas, social structures, work tools and materials, and in the ways we communicate and learn This social-techno fact has not had the same impact at all levels of society. There have been changes in various spheres of society, which have favored or brought on discrimination among the various social groups due to the fact that only some sectors may benefit from these changes. This is precisely what has happened with the “new technologies” (Álvarez, 2005). Due to the accelerated development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have had, they play a part in most activities carried out by man, presenting new needs in entertainment and up-dating due to the fact that not everyone has a high enough level of informatics competencies, which differentiates between those who know how to use ICT and those who do not. Gros and Contreras (2006) established that the incorporation of ICTs has made the gap among social groups even larger; we call this phenomenon the digital gap

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