Digital Skills and Online Collaborative Learning: The Study Report

Abstract

This paper discusses digital skills and their role in collaborative distance learning. Collaboration is considered to be one of the most effective, yet challenging, methods of teaching and learning. Many learners avoid collaborative tasks, for different reasons. We believe that the level of digital skills may be a key to understanding their attitude. A study was conducted at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. The respondents assessed, amongst other items, the level of their own digital skills. Based on this assessment, three groups of students with different skill levels were distinguished. Further analyses showed that students with different level of digital skills vary according to their own experiences in collaborative online learning, but not in terms of views on the phenomenon, technologies used, or computer hardware. Most differences are between the low and high skill groups. However, they are also present between the low and average, and the average and high skill groups. These results contribute to the discussion on the need to individualise the teaching and learning process and highlight the roles of digital competence development for all participants in the learning process.