Self-perception about emerging digital skills in Higher Education students

Abstract

The current labor market demands new qualities and knowledge from the recent graduates of universities. This has been called ‘21st century digital skills’ and there is not enough research on the self-perception of students in this regard. The objective of this research was to measure student self-perception about their own 21st century digital skills related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Higher Education. A questionnaire was generated and applied to 356 students with the stratified random sampling technique. A principal component analysis was carried out, supported by adequate values of the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient and the Bartlett sphericity test. The data indicate that the students use digital technology in academic projects, primarily; they have a lot of skill when using ICT for information management, to develop critical thinking and to solve problems, as well as to manage mobile devices. However, their self-perception in the use of ICT in teaching classes is low. The results suggest that the students do not believe that the use of ICT in the classroom is useful to develop this kind of emerging digital skills. Instead, they think that carrying out academic projects does strengthen the acquisition and development of such skills in relation to the use of ICT..