Digital competence of Russian university teachers

Abstract

This research paper presents the results of the author’s survey aimed at assessing the digital competence of modern university teachers. The relevance of digital competencies is becoming more and more obvious due to the transformations in the activities of educational organizations. These changes concern the use of digital technologies not only in university management, but also directly in the educational process. The development of distance learning and remote interaction formats is an objective reality in the modern world. The purpose of this article is to make an attempt of assessing a university teacher’s digital competence level based on the general perception of his/her abilities and the digital technologies used in his/her professional activities. The author analyses the teachers’ readiness to use digital technologies and their attitude to distance learning. The study showed that the majority of the interviewed teachers have a high level of basic and universal digital competencies. It was found that most of the respondents already have experience of taking online courses to improve their professional skills. The analysis makes it possible to conclude that the teachers who participated in the survey demonstrate a high readiness to use digital technologies in their professional activities. The author’s study is not supposed to give a complete picture of all Russian university teachers’ digital competence level, since this requires both greater coverage of respondents and the use of other channels (beyond digital) to collect data within the survey. At the same time, this research allows to formulate possible ideas for improving Russian university teachers’ digital competence level, which nowadays becomes the key to improving their effectiveness. The results of the study can be used when working out universities’ personnel development programs in order to ensure a higher level of the teachers’ digital competence.