THE LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’ DIGITAL COMPETENCIES IN THE COMMUNICATION DOMAIN

Abstract

Our time is the time of rapid changes in all walks of life. The fastest changing segment is that of digital technologies. As the development of digital technologies is a current and continuous process, it is expected that in time these technologies will become completely integrated into the school practice. Therefore, it is important to observe if the students are ready and to what extent they are equipped to apply digital tools in education. Furthermore, it is necessary to establish whether students possess digital competencies which will become necessary if one wishes to keep up with the teaching process and complete school assignments or if students´ digital competencies are related to spending leisure time on content that is unrelated to school assignments. The paper researches digital competencies of secondary school students in the communication domain. We strived to establish the level of students´ digital competencies necessary to communicate through digital technologies, and differences in the level of students´ digital competencies bearing in mind their academic achievements, sex, and form. The results of the conducted research indicate that the largest number of students have mastered the basic and intermediate levels of digital competencies in the communication domain, but one cannot disregard the number of students who are advanced users in this domain. When it comes to differences in participants’ responses in terms of research variables, it has been established that there are statistically significant differences concerning sex and academic achievement, while there are no established statistical differences in regard to their form.