Informational literacy and digital competence in teacher education students

Abstract

Spain is one of the largest consumers of digital content worldwide, especially audiovisual content shared on social networks, but the media and information literacy of its citizens is still insufficient. In addition, there are many studies showing that there is a training gap on this subject at the university level. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze future Early Childhood and Primary education graduates' perception regarding digital literacy in order to identify their shortfalls and assess their level of competence in media literacy in conjunction with digital literacy. As reference standards, we used the «Marco Común de Competencia Digital Docente» by the Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas and the «Orientación Normativa y Estratégica de la Alfabetización Mediática e Informacional» by UNESCO. From that point, an online questionnaire was implemented as an instrument for the development of this study. The results showed that Universidad Internacional de Valencia's education students have an advanced level of competence in the areas of information, communication and audiovisual content creation, which ensures good media, information literacy and digital competences. They showed to have, however, poorer safety and technological innovation skills. Likewise, the future teachers' personal perception about their digital competence is higher than the actual findings of this research show.