University Teachers’ Digital Competence: A Case Study from Portugal

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

The work follows the design of studies conducted at some higher education institutions by using the DigCompEdu questionnaire to survey the competence level of the higher education teachers. (cf. Cabero Almenara et al., 2021). It is not clear whether the survey was designed as an evaluation to collect data for CPD activities planned by the management of the university or as a study. What research question(s) guided the survey? The data collection is based on the DigCompEdu model through the instruments; the TPACK model by Mishra&Koehler is also cited (not listed in the references) and OECD competences such as creativity, critical thinking, etc. (cf. 21st century skills), but these models are not taken into account for the survey.  

 

 

The method is clearly stated, but not discussed in terms of validity and limitations. How is the sample of 12.2% of university teachers to be evaluated? The evaluation of the data mainly comprises bar charts, for whose readability the labelling of the axes would be helpful In interpreting the diagrams, explanations are given that cannot be justified by the data alone, and further considerations are made with regard to further training of the university staff and the innovation of learning environment.

 

In order to structure the work more clearly from a scientific point of view, it could be helpful to distinguish more clearly between data presentation, describing and summarising the results, interpretation and further (data-based) considerations and limitations.

Author Response

We are grateful for the opportunity to submit our revised manuscript University teachers’ digital competence: a case study from Portugal to the Social Sciences journal.
We appreciate all the recommendations and suggestions made. Below, we have responded to all your comments, and revised the manuscript accordingly.
We hope you will approve the changes we have made to the manuscript, and that the revised manuscript is now suitable for publication in the Social Sciences journal.

We found the comment on the focus of the survey especially important, so we added information both at the end of the section on the University, where we state the research question, but also in the Materials and Methods section, as well as in a new section – Conclusions and limitations (suggested by another reviewer). It should now be clear that this paper is a case study that aims to provide suggestions on how the university management (or others doing the same internal analysis) should operationalise the professional training of its teachers. This also accompanies your suggestion of clarifying the research question.
We also found your comment on the DigCompEdu model, the TPACK and OECD competences very relevant. We added the missing references and reviewed the text to clarify that this study is based, specifically, on the self-assessment questionnaire on digital competencies - DigCompEdu Checkin, as referred, in its version validated for the Portuguese population. The remaining models are not mentioned because, as stated in the text, this work focuses on a particular aspect of this teacher training: a preparation for a digital education, from an analysis of the digital competencies of its teachers to, depending on the results obtained, define training strategies to be adopted to integrate the digital in innovative and quality teaching practices. Our understanding is that, based on the results obtained, it is possible to prepare, by the institutions, adequate training that integrates the digital competence in pedagogical innovation activities. This idea already appeared at the end of this work, but we described it more to try to clarify it.
As you stated the need for discussion in terms of validity and limitations, which is a very important remark, we added some information, including some paragraphs in the conclusions section regarding the study’s limitations. We are aware that a rate of 12.2% may be considered small. It is presented here as a study and as an example of the exercise that a given university institution can carry out if it wants to understand the level of digital competence of its teaching staff. In this sense, it is not our intention to assess the level of digital competence of this institution, but rather to use these results as examples of the importance of carrying out a careful analysis before preparing training activities. We hope that this will now be clear for the readers.
Regarding data readability, we followed your suggestion of labelling the axes. We hope now all data is clear even for skimming readers.
We totally agree when you state that “explanations are given that cannot be justified by the data alone, and further considerations are made with regard to further training of the university staff and the innovation of learning environment”. Therefore, we added information along the text, and, specifically, at the conclusions and limitations section.
Finally, we understand and thank your comment related to the structure of the text. We understand the advantages of present results in a different section of discussion. Even though, intertwining results and its discussion allows the highlighting of the relevance of each result along with its presentation. The main reason for not detaching results from discussion was that we wanted to present a comprehensive understanding if there where, or not, significant differences according to gender, age, experience, or scientific areas. That gave us the opportunity for a different section comparing two different organic units from the University. But, as we agree that there was room for improvement, we reorganised information to add a new section of conclusions, final considerations, and limitations, as suggested.

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper answers an important question about the competence and prepardeness of higher education teachers for digital instruction in a portugues university. Results indicate no significant difference in competence based on gender, age, speciality, and teaching experience. These results align and confirms the results of previous studies. 

The authors presented detailed information about the current digitization projects in the area and the university. This provides helpful contextual knowledge about the research.

The paper needs more descriptive figures captions. It is helpful to make the figures clear for skimming readers. 

There are some minor typos and grammatical errors that need to be corrected. 

 

 

Author Response

We are grateful for the opportunity to submit our revised manuscript University teachers’ digital competence: a case study from Portugal to the Social Sciences journal.
We appreciate all the recommendations and suggestions made. We have revised the manuscript accordingly to all your suggestions. We hope you will approve the changes we have made to the manuscript, and that the revised version is now suitable for publication in the Social Sciences journal.
We are very grateful for your constructive and helpful comments, and we are happy that you have considered our manuscript generally interesting. We added information to the figures, labelling all the axes. We hope now all data is clear even for skimming readers.
We apologise for the typos and grammatical errors. We read the whole paper, after additions made due to all reviewers’ comments and hope we caught every error and typo and made no new ones.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper presents the case of university teachers' digital competence in one of the Portuguese universities.  The theoretical part of the paper bases mostly on national and international reports and recommendations for higher education institutions. At the same time there is a lack of background with the reference to the educational theories and concepts concerning academic skills development. There is no even explanation what DigCompEdu is, thus it’s difficult to understand the research analysis that are presented in the other part of the article. Also there is no conclusion part which would bring some ideas for future university teacher’ development. 

Author Response

We are grateful for the opportunity to submit our revised manuscript University teachers’ digital competence: a case study from Portugal to the Social Sciences journal.
We appreciate all the recommendations and suggestions made. Below, we have responded to all your comments, and revised the manuscript accordingly.
We hope you will approve the changes we have made to the manuscript, and that the revised version is now suitable for publication in the Social Sciences journal.
We thank you for giving us the opportunity to detail a bit more about the focus of our paper. It is not so much about educational theories and concepts concerning academic skills development, as it is on digital competences. But we understand that maybe this was not clear enough. For the sake of clarity, we reinforced the link between the initial idea and the aim of our paper. We also added detailed information about the focus of the work, and on the framework DigCompEdu as you also stated it was not clear. We now believe the relation between sections 1 and 2 and sections 3 to 5 is clear.
Also, we totally agree with you when you stated the importance of a conclusion and ideas for the future. We added this final section – conclusions and limitations – where we inserted some more information regarding our proposals for future university teachers’ development.