Page 133 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

Digital Competencies of Future Teachers

the option to withdraw from the study at any time without facing any conse-
quences. The data were collected until the beginning of June 4.
Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS 9.. The data processing in-
volved both descriptive and inferential statistics. Before the analysis, a check
for missing values was undertaken. Since the students completed the ques-
tionnaire in the classroom, there were a few missing values. However, most
students stopped giving answers to questions in the demographics section,
so we excluded nine cases from the study.
Since our objective was to compare the level of digital competence be-
tween students in preschool education and those in elementary education,
we segmented the database. We conducted separate analyses of outliers
and normal distribution for each group. Outliers were identified within each
group by standardising the scores and checking the standardised scores for
absolute values higher than 3.9. After further analysis, we determined that
these outliers are not due to errors but accurately reflect the variability within
the data. The univariate normal distribution of the items was assessed using
the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, as well as by analysing skewness and kurtosis
coefficients. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test revealed deviations from the nor-
mal distribution in all items (p < .5). The skewness coefficient for preschool
education students ranged from −.86 to .4, and for primary education
students from −.75 to .3. The kurtosis coefficient for preschool education
students ranged from −.71 to 1.6, and for primary education students, from
−.94 to .8. This also indicates a deviation from the normal distribution.
Given the deviations from normality and the presence of outliers, we used
the Mann-Whitney test for subsequent analysis to compare the level of digi-
tal competencies, measured on an ordinal scale, between students enrolled
in elementary education and preschool education.
At the level of descriptive statistics, the mean (M), standard deviation (SD),
minimum (MIN) and maximum (MAX) values were used, as well as coefficients
of skewness and kurtosis.

Results
The results are presented in six thematic sections.

Search, Find, Access
The responses reflect students’ self-assessed abilities in searching, finding,
and accessing information and content with the use of digital tools. Students
feel most confident in their ability to search and find groups on specific top-
ics on social media. The ability to consume content on various smart devices

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