Special needs pre-service teachers digital competencies: an exploratory study at the University of Foggia

Abstract

In Italy, K-12 teachers and school institutions' digital comptencies were under the average in the OECD Countries (Talis Survey, 2018), and they struggled during the lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forever changed the way in which the didactic is provided. The University of Foggia Learning Science hub (LSh), in Italy, works on designing and planning new methodologies to teach digital skills to pre-service teachers (especially special needs teachers), in order to enhance their knowledge and use of digital skills in planning and providing interventions, lessons and courses. To guide the designing and planning activities, we have administered the DigComp 2.2, the newest version of the self-report questionnaire of the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens created by the European Commission, to 338 teachers attending a specialization course to become special needs teachers at the University of Foggia in the current Academic Year (2022/2023). In the present study, the collected results of the survey will be analyzed and discussed, becoming the cornerstone of LSh research in this field. At the end of the specialization course, the survey will be proposed again, to compare teachers' digital skills at the beginning and the end of the course.