Análisis competencial de los docentes de la Facultad de Filosofía de la Universidad Católica Santiago de Guayaquil

Abstract

The 21st century is the century of information where individual learning is conceived mainly through interactive and participative technologies that offer a stimulating and socially positive experience, but, at the same time, become a construct that allows students to learn by doing. In this context, students share their knowledge experiences with others who are frequently on the other side of that virtual space (Gómez-Parra and Huertas-Abril, 2019). Likewise, the digital world offers infinite options to teachers: it increases student motivation, enhances multimedia communication, fosters experimentation and immersion in thematic worlds through interactivity, and also favours communication, collaborative work and the creation of virtual communities. All this, applied optimally to the teachinglearning process, is a valuable source of resources for the teacher (Reyero, 2019). This doctoral thesis aims to describe and assess the digital competence level of professors of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University (UCSG.). With regard to its structural organization, it follows the structure established by contemporary studies in which the study approach precedes the theoretical framework of research. In this sense, the research work is made up of five chapters and a section linked to the appendices and the edublog of the doctoral thesis (simplified version). URL of the edublog of the doctoral thesis: https://bit.ly/3g9Ktd9 The scientific work begins with the justification, objectives and global structure of the research study. Among the main objectives, we could remark, the following ones: to assess the digital competence level of teachers of the Faculty of Philosophy at the Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University and to analyze if the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil facilitates ICT training from the professors’ perspective. The second chapter develops the theoretical framework of the study, which begins with description and didactic analysis of the Information Society and Information and Communication Technologies and the new challenges for teacher training and university innovation: education by competencies. Ultimately, the digital competences linked to the training of university teaching staff are described. Finally, the framework of competences training is made explicit in the European Higher Education Area and in Latin America; subsequently, this competence framework is contextualized at the Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University. The third chapter of the research corresponds to the methodology of the research developed from a socio-educational, systemic and integrating perspective. Specifically, the present exploratory study is approached from a multimethod, mixed, eclectic and holistic approach, overcoming methodological monism and using both perspectives in a strategy of complementarity and convergence of knowledge and comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon under study: the assessment of the level digital competence of professors of the UCSG of Ecuador. Finally, it is a non-experimental research, without the deliberate manipulation of variables and in which only the phenomena are observed in their natural environment in orther to be analyzed (Hernández Sampieri et al., 2010) and of an educational nature, where the researcher wants to describe and know the digital competence scope of the UCSG. In this sense, it is inserted in the own perspective of the Educational Sciences from an integrating and comprehensive approach of the socio-cultural phenomena. On the other hand, in order to obtain information about professors’ competence at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University, an adaptation was made to the CODIPES® Questionnaire (Digital Competences in Higher Education Teaching Staff) (Fernández-Márquez et al., 2018) and the application of different semi-structured interviews to key informants following different authors’ recommendations (Colás, 1992, González Ríos, 1997, Corbetta, 2003). In accordance with the above, the research is organized in four phases, the first one consists of the literature review about the conceptualization and typologies of competencies, the second and third phase, are dedicated to obtain the data from the questionnaires on digital competences of the professors of the Faculty of Philosophy of the Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University and the results of the interviews with key informants for the professors’ competence and the last phase develops the methodological triangulation of the data. Ultimately, in the fourth and fifth chapter, the reflections, results and conclusions obtained from the applied instruments are described in a coherent and rigorous way, highlighting the following aspects: First, derived from the results from chapter IV, in section 4.1.2., It is inferred that more than half of the sample value the use of ICT for their teaching as very important (essential, 56%) and necessary (20%), not considered in any case as expendable or unavoidable. At the same time, it is observed that the professors use to a greater extent the digital competence of information. Finally, the professors satisfactorily perceive that the UCSG facilitates and advises their ICT training. In this sense, it can be seen through two methodological alternatives; first, from a quantitative perspective using the CODIPES® instrument, professors point out that the response of the University to those who have requested training or media resources (60% of professors), has resulted satisfactory in 96% of the cases. Likewise, these results have been confirmed from a qualitative perspective with the transcriptions of the interviews made to the different key informants. Finally, from this didactic perspective, as we indicated in another study (LópezBelmonte et al., 2019), the technological resources used in educational contexts enrich and overcome traditional methodologies based on the transmission of content and the protagonism of the teacher. Under this educational perspective and with the results presented in this scientific work, it would be desirable to promote teacher training courses in ICT skills, with focus on the creation and implementation, evaluation and dissemination of multi-format digital educational content in the network, training courses on personal data protection, adequate network behavior (netiquette), privacy policy of digital environments, among others.