Features of digital competence of schoolchildren and students and the specifics of their use of the Internet for educational purposes

Abstract

Introduction. Modern adolescents can spend from 5 to 8 hours a day on the Internet. As a result, the distinction between the digital and real world is gradually blurring. On the other hand, there are only conflicting studies on how digital competence develops and how it is linked to academic activities among students and teachers. Therefore, the purpose of our research is to identify the characteristics of digital competence among pupils and students, as well as the specifics of their use of the Internet for learning objectives. Materials and methods. The methodological basis of the study consists of survey techniques: a questionnaire regarding Internet usage, a questionnaire on the frequency of utilizing the Internet for educational purposes, and a questionnaire on the Index of Digital Competence (Soldatova et al., 2013). An analysis of 606 respondents' results is presented in the article. The questionnaires described above were included in specially created Google Forms filled out by 275 schoolchildren and 331 students. Statistical analysis was carried out using the Python programming language and included descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and binary regression analysis. Results. Exploratory factor analysis showed that more developed digital competence of pupils is associated with a higher frequency of use of such educational web activities as modeling experiments in the digital environment and participation in online competitions, even if digital knowledge and skills can also be used for noneducational purposes (factor 2). Students, as factor 3 describes, more often search for information on the web and use the Internet for educational purposes. Regression analysis revealed: despite the fact that schoolchildren declare that they less often use the Internet for educational purposes (p < 0,001), they use educational web activities in a more diverse manner: they watch video lessons (p < 0,001), use tests and simulators for self-testing (p < 0,001); take part in online competitions (p = 0.00). Students, in turn, report using web searches more often (p = 0.02) and watching movies for educational purposes (p < 0,001). Also, schoolchildren have a higher declared level of some indicators of digital competence (p ≤ 0.01) compared to students. Conclusion. The conducted research contributes to drawing up a portrait of the digital natives. Future research could focus on identifying actual digital skills. The results of this work can be used in educational practice to develop effective methods for improving the digital competence of schoolchildren and students.