Page 162 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

Danijela Ljubojević and Nikoleta Gutvajn

ers can guide students in critical evaluation of online information, they may
be less skilled in facilitating other key digital competencies that require not
only using digital media to communicate and collaborate but also creating
digital content and solving concrete problems creatively. As digital compe-
tence becomes increasingly essential for students in the 1st century, teacher
training programs should incorporate comprehensive strategies for building
these skills (Kadijevich et al., 3). Another noticeable weakness is reflected
in the responses regarding safe and responsible use of digital technology,
amounting poorly to A level. This gap could impede students’ ability to fully
engage with digital tools in a safe and responsible manner, detecting and
evaluating online malpractices and routes to report if they feel personally of-
fended or attacked.

Self-Assessed vs. Actual Competence
Interestingly, teachers initially self-assessed their digital competence at the
upper-intermediate level (B). However, after completing the questionnaire,
their self-assessment mark dropped slightly to 3.79, but still remained at the
B level. The actual competence, as reflected by their responses, was found
to be at the A/B1 level, indicating a significant gap between perceived and
actual proficiency. Again, this is completely in line with the study by Ru-
bio-Gragera et al. (3) which reports that teachers tend to overestimate their
digital competence. The results suggest that teachers may require more struc-
tured reflection and feedback on their digital skills to align their perceptions
with reality, which could be achieved through more targeted, diagnostic as-
sessments in teacher training programs.
Several limitations must be acknowledged. Firstly, the relatively small sam-
ple size (54 respondents) may limit the generalizability of the findings to the
entire population of foreign language teachers in Serbian higher education.
Secondly, since data were collected via an online questionnaire, response
bias may be present, as participation was voluntary and those with higher
digital competence may have been more inclined to respond. Furthermore,
the study focuses solely on state universities, meaning the results may not
fully reflect the experiences of teachers in private higher education institu-
tions. Finally, self-reported data may introduce subjective biases, as respond-
ents’ perceptions of their digital competence might not always align with
objective assessments. Although the dataset includes responses from mul-
tiple institutions, future research could expand the sample to include teach-
ers from private universities and other educational sectors to provide a more
comprehensive picture.Implications for practice and future research

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