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The Digital Competence of Foreign Language Teachers at HEI in Serbia

Participants
The analysis was conducted at the national level, with data collected from
54 participants through an online questionnaire. The target population for
this study consists of foreign language teachers working at HEIs in Serbia. Al-
though the sample includes teachers from multiple state universities, it does
not encompass educators from private institutions, colleges, or non-universi-
ty language programs.
Based on the unpublished study carried out by Jovanović et al. (4), the
total number of foreign language teachers working at HEIs in Serbia is 69
for English, 7 for Italian, 1 for German, 8 for Russian, 1 for French, and  for
Spanish, making a total of 18 foreign language teachers across various HEIs.1
As shown in Diagram 1, out of the 54 participants who completed the ques-
tionnaire, 46 were female (85.18%) and 8 (14.8%) were male. When it comes
to the educational level, educational attainment varied from BA to Ph.D., with
4 participants holding a bachelor’s degree (until 6), 1 holding a bachelor’s
degree (after 6), 5 having a magister degree, 7 with a master’s degree, and
37 possessing a doctoral degree. Teaching experience was categorized into
several ranges: 6 participants (11%) had –5 years of experience, 3 participants
(6%) had 6–1 years, 15 participants (8%) had 11– years, 4 participants
(44%) had 1–3 years, and 6 participants (11%) had more than 3 years, re-
flecting a diverse spectrum of experience levels among the educators. The
majority of respondents teach English, with 34 teachers (63%) specialized in
this language. Other languages represented include Italian (5 participants,
9%), Spanish (4 participants, 7%), German (3 participants, 6%), French ( partic-
ipants, 4%), Russian ( participants, 4%), Serbian (1 participants, %), Slovene (1
participant, %), Greek (1 participant, %), and Norwegian (1 participant, %).
The respondents occupy a wide range of academic positions, with the ma-
jority serving as Assistant professors (9.63% (16)), followed by Foreign lan-
guage teachers (16.67% (9)), Associate professors (.37% (11)), and Readers
(1.96% (7)). A smaller proportion holds the position of Junior teaching as-
sistant (3.7% ()), Teaching assistant (3.7% ()), Teaching assistant with PhD
(1.85% (1)), and Senior lecturer (1.85% (1)). The smallest group consists of Full
professors (.8% (1)).

1 The questionnaire in the study by Jovanović et al. (4) was completed in all nine university
centers of Serbia, and responses were received from 56 faculties, representing 6.6% of all
state. This means that total number of foreign language teachers working at HEI is higher
than 18 but approximatelly no more than 173. The sample of 54 foreign language teachers
represents approximately 31.% of the estimated total population (173 teachers) working at
HEIs in Serbia. This indicates that this study captures nearly one-third of the total foreign
language teaching faculty, which is a moderate representation for generalizing findings.

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