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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1497376

Assessment of Digital Competencies in Higher Education Students: Development and Validation of a Measurement Scale

Provisionally accepted
Agustín Mejías-Acosta Agustín Mejías-Acosta 1Mayra D'Armas Regnault Mayra D'Armas Regnault 2Eduardo Vargas-Cano Eduardo Vargas-Cano 1Jesennia Cárdenas-Cobo Jesennia Cárdenas-Cobo 2Cristian Vidal-Silva Cristian Vidal-Silva 3*
  • 1 University of Carabobo, Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela
  • 2 State University of Milagro, Milagro, Guayas, Ecuador
  • 3 University of the Americas (UDLA), Granados, Chile

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Digital competencies represent students' ability to use technology and digital media interactively to enhance their learning experiences. Given their growing importance, there is a need to develop instruments that can be used in different contexts to measure them. This research aims to develop and validate an instrument to measure digital competencies in university students and identify the dimensions that characterize it. Based on a literature review, a scale is designed and validated with students from a Venezuelan university. As a result, a model of 22 variables grouped into four dimensions is presented: Communication and digital security, Access to digital content management, Creation of digital content and use of digital media, and Digital empathy, which can be applied in similar environments. The results of the tests demonstrate the scale's psychometric properties in terms of both validity and reliability.

    Keywords: Digital competencies, Digital skills, Digital Literacy, university students, higher education

    Received: 16 Sep 2024; Accepted: 04 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mejías-Acosta, D'Armas Regnault, Vargas-Cano, Cárdenas-Cobo and Vidal-Silva. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Cristian Vidal-Silva, University of the Americas (UDLA), Granados, Chile

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.