Digital competence in Spanish university education and its use by students

Abstract

Technologies have massively burst into all fields, including Higher Education. The current students have grown up surrounded by technologies, which is reflected in their behavior. For this reason, universities have adapted by integrating digital competence into their training offer, improving learning processes and adjusting to the university profile. The objective of this work is to ascertain how digital skills are used by Spanish higher education (bachelor’s and master’s degree) students, thus verifying whether so-called digital competence is being actively used in higher education. A survey was applied to 324 individuals, highlighting among its results that the university panorama is in a situation where digital tools are very useful for its improvement. These data were collected before the global pandemic, after which the use of online tools intensified. However, the students are still not aware of all of them, or they do not use them.