Assessing Digital Competence Frameworks in K-12 Educators: A Mixed-Methods Study of 66 Schools from China

Digital competence (DC) is essential in a digital era. This study explains the core concepts of DC, and develop a model of DC for primary and secondary school teachers in China. Based on Competence Theory, a model is developed and iteratively revised using the Delphi Method, based on questionnaire responses from 20 education experts. For 1229 teachers from 66 primary and secondary schools in two cities, we report teacher DC to not be high overall, to differ regionally, and for significant differences to exist between teachers of different ages and professional titles, but not between genders or job performance. To resolve differences in levels of teacher DC, series of recommendations are made to improve management and to guide policy such as establishing a digital environment on campus to improve teacher evaluation and incentives, and multi-level and multi-dimensional training to improve teacher professional skills and encourage multi-party cooperation and sharing, and promotion of coordinated development of digitalization across regions.