A proposal of indicators for assessing the digital competence of 12 year oldsa model adapted from DIGCOM 2.0

Abstract

Digital competence is one of the key competences citizens should have acquired by the time they finish the compulsory stages of education so that they can satisfactorily cope with adult life and be able to follow learning processes throughout their lives (European Commission, 2007). We now face the challenge of assessing this competence in a rigorous way at the end of Primary Education. This has become one of the objectives of the research project called “Assessment of the digital competence of students of compulsory education and a study of the impact of socio-family variables”, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (EDU2015-67975-C3-3-P) currently being implemented by the GITE-USAL research group of the University of Salamanca. For the assessment process we started with the European model, DIGCOM (Ferrari, 2013), which identifies five large areas: information, communication, creation of contents, security and problem-solving. Based on this model, specific indicators were identified for the population in question (12-year-old children), which were then validated by experts, both specialists and teachers involved in the final year of Primary Education. The present paper thus presents the indicators of the model established to carry out the assessment of digital competence in students finishing Primary school (12 yrs. Of age), which will serve as a foundation for developing task-based assessment instruments focused on problem-solving.