Analysis of teachers' digital competencies working in high schools

The aim of this research is to analyze the digital competencies of teachers' working in high schools in terms of educational practices. In the study, explanatory sequential mixed design, one of the mixed method designs, was used. The quantitative part of the research was designed according to the descriptive survey model, and the qualitative part was designed according to the holistic multiple-case design. The population and the working group of the study included teachers working in high schools in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the quantitative part consists of 402 teachers who were first determined by stratified sampling and then by simple random sampling working in Science, Anatolian and Social Sciences high schools in the central districts of Antalya province. The quantitative data of the study were collected with the Digital Competence Scale (DCS) developed within the scope of the European Commission Digital Competence Framework for Teachers (DigCompEdu) and the data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 program. Descriptive and deductive statistics were conducted for the quantitative part. In the analysis of quantitative data, percentage, frequency, means, standard deviation, when the assumptions of parametric tests were satisfied, t-test for independent samples and one-factor analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA) for unrelated samples, were used. Mann-Whitney U test was utilised when the assumptions of parametric tests were not satisfied. In the qualitative part of the research, a semi-structured interview form prepared by taking DigCompEdu into consideration was used in order to determine the digital competencies of teachers in terms of educational practices in depth. Qualitative data were collected from 15 teachers who participated in the quantitative dimension of the research and were selected by maximum variation sampling from purposive sampling methods. According to the Teachers' Digital Competence Framework, the three categories of Educators' Professional Competences, Educators' Pedagogical Competences and Learners' Competences were analyzed under six dimensions: Professional engagement (Professional responsibility), Digital resources, Teaching and learning, Assessment, Empowering learners and Facilitating students' digital competence. For the data obtained, descriptive and content analysis was conducted with NVIVO 12 qualitative research package program. As a result of the research, when the averages of the teachers in the digital competence dimensions were evaluated in general, it was concluded that the lowest value was in the professional responsibility dimension and the highest value was in the digital resources dimension. Teachers generally reported that their digital competence behaviors were mostly performed. Teachers' views on digital competencies show significant differences in some dimensions according to gender, age, professional seniority and branch variables, but not according to educational status and school type variables. According to the qualitative results of the teachers; They define the concept of digital competence as 21st century competence and digital skills. According to the dimension of professional responsibility; teachers' perceptions about their use of digital technology are positive. According to the digital resources dimension, the perceptions of teachers regarding their use of digital technology are mostly active. In the dimension of teaching and learning; teachers use technologies mostly in the application stage. In the assessment dimension; teachers find the use of digital data mostly useful. In the dimension of empowering learners, presentation and visual technology are mostly used and utmost attention is paid to resource access. In the dimension of facilitating learners' digital competence, students are encouraged to recognize and use technology.