Social Educators: A Study of Digital Competence from a Gender Differences Perspective

Digital competence should be treated as an essential skill in the professional development of social educators. The purpose of the research project presented in this article is twofold: on the one hand, to conduct diagnostic self-assessment of students studying for an Undergraduate Degree in Social Education at the University of Salamanca (Spain), and on the other, to check whether the gender variable affects the results. Applied was the so-called ex post facto quantitative method and the data were collected via an online questionnaire. Descriptive analyses were applied and means were compared using Student's t-test. The results show that students generally assess their familiarity with the information and communication technologies (ICT) as unsatisfactory and the use of ICT as satisfactory. In contrast, they assess themselves very positively in their attitudes toward ICT. Furthermore, male respondents in the sample scored higher in familiarity and use of ICT in comparison to female respondents, while women assessed themselves more positively than men in relation to attitude toward ICT. Finally, positive correlation was confirmed between familiarity with ICT and its use, as well as between the use and the attitudes toward ICT. There was no correlation between respondents' familiarity with ICT and their attitude toward it.