Abstract
Preparing quality academic teachers for modern digital native students is an essential task for higher educational institutions. Professional teachers' digital competencies combine professional, pedagogical, and technological knowledge and skills as well as beliefs regarding integrating technology in teaching practice. This article is an attempt to study the personal level of digital competence of PhD students as future academic teachers. The paper presents statements from an ongoing study (n=120) piloting large scale longitudinal qualitative teachers' surveys between 2017 and 2020. The first part of the research started in 2017 to attempt to recognize the personal level of digital competence of PhD students as future academic teachers. The study was conducted during 2017-2018 at the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences. To study the levels of digital competence, a special questionnaire based on the European Competency Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators was used. The study results show different levels of digital competence depending on the students' field of study and specialty. The highest technological scores were demonstrated by PhD students of engineering specializations. However, the results also showed that on average PhD students do not feel well prepared for the practical use of digital techniques in teaching activities. The preliminary study results indicate the need to improve PhD training programs including various ways of developing students' skills for making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning.
Highlights
Nowadays one of the main teachers’ skills is to be able to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into teaching
The study indicated that preparation for using digital techniques should be included in different courses of PhD programs
Attention is mainly focused on technical issues without practical introduction and training pedagogical digital skills for teaching and learning
Summary
Nowadays one of the main teachers’ skills is to be able to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into teaching. Besides the skills for how to teach subjects effectively, teachers should know how to integrate digital technology into their teaching [3, 18]. The opportunities provided by ICT (e.g. networking, interaction, information retrieval, presentation, and analysis) are seen as core elements in honing 21st-century skills. This required a more comprehensive embedding of ICT and its pedagogical use in the curriculum for students as well as in teacher training. A lot of recent studies highlighted the importance of digital competencies for in-service teachers of different levels [8, 23, 24,]. Good teaching is effective behaviorally but must reset on a foundation of adequately grounded premises [16]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
