Program to strengthen digital competencies in university students of the faculty of education

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine the impact of the implementation of an information and communication technologies (ICT) program on strengthening the digital competencies of first-year students in the College of Education at a university in Lima, Peru. The study was conducted according to a quantitative applied approach, with a single-group pre-experimental design that employed a pretest and a posttest. The population consisted of the 156 incoming students in 2024; the sample, selected by non-probabilistic convenience sampling, was made up of 78 students from different majors. Data was collected by means of a structured questionnaire, validated by expert opinion and with an appropriate level of reliability. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis, applying a Student’s t-test for related samples, with a level of significance of p < 0.05. The results showed a significant improvement between the pretest and the posttest. In the initial measurement, 38.5% of the students were at the basic level, 30.8% at the intermediate level, 28.2% at the advanced level and 2.6% at the expert level. Following the intervention, the basic level was reduced to 0% and the intermediate level to 1.3%, and accordingly, the advanced level increased to 62.8% and the expert level to 35.9%. Likewise, the t-test showed statistically significant differences between the two measurements. It was concluded that the implementation of the ICT program has a significant effect on the strengthening of the digital competencies, which highlights the importance of systematically incorporating ICT training programs in higher education, primarily in initial teacher training, in order to meet the needs of the current digital educational environment.