Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">In our current society, Digital Competence is an essential and basic competence for teachers. The students need trained teachers who know how to use Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and develop them into pedagogy. However, some of them do not know how. This phenomena is called “The generational digital divide”, which occurs when teachers do not have sufficient digital or technological skills or do not adapt to them. This article aims to determine whether the age of teachers has an influence on their knowledge about Information and Communication Technologies. The objective is to detect if there really exists a digital gap between generations, specifically in Dual Vocational Education Training, a kind of education which has been growing in the recent years. To do so, a study with a quantitative and descriptive method has been carried out, with the participation of 1.568 teachers of this training modality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia. The data were extracted by means of a questionnaire to measure the level of digital teaching competence in Dual Vocational Education and Training schools. The results showed that the level of digital competence shown was medium to low across all dimensions. With regard to the age factor, only the problem-solving dimension was found to be age-dependent.</p>
Highlights
In this century, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have revolutionized social, professional, educational and communicational relations; turning society, according to Cabero and Llorente (2006), into a more dynamic and interconnected group of individuals that demands new skills from its citizens and trainers.The European Parliament in its "Recommendation on Key Competences of Lifelong Learning" (European Commission, 2006) established the term "Digital Competence", which is defined as "the creative, critical and safe use of information and communication to achieve objectives related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and social participation"
The objective is to detect if there really exists a digital gap between generations, in Dual Vocational Education Training, a kind of education which has been growing in the recent years
The data were extracted by means of a questionnaire to measure the level of digital teaching competence in Dual Vocational Education and Training schools
Summary
The European Parliament in its "Recommendation on Key Competences of Lifelong Learning" (European Commission, 2006) established the term "Digital Competence", which is defined as "the creative, critical and safe use of information and communication to achieve objectives related to work, employability, learning, leisure, inclusion and social participation". Such competence is essential in all areas of work. Having a good level of ICTs knowledge is necessary to access any qualified job with greater possibilities, otherwise there is a risk of unemployment and a difficult work insertion In this sense, the intervention of the education system is essential to acquire these skills. That is the reason why they should feel comfortable in the use of new technologies (Suarez-Rodriguez et al, 2012)
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