Digital competences in research: creativity and entrepreneurship as essential predictors for teacher training

Abstract

The first purpose of this study was to analyse the digital research competences of higher education teaching staff, depending on whether the level of creativity of the teacher to initiate new research projects and their level of entrepreneurial spirit was low/good. Following, it was analysed whether the use of different emerging technologies significantly affect the digital skills of teachers in research work; and to know in what order the use of these emerging technologies or the combination of several of them affect the digital competences of teachers. A ex post facto design was used with a sample of 1740 Higher Education teachers. Digital skills were measured using the instrument of Guillén-Gámez et al. (Educ Inf Technol 10.1007/s10639-023-11895-2, 2023). The levels of creativity and entrepreneurship were analyzed with dichotomous variables from a 10-point Likert scale (less than 7 points-low level, greater than or equal to 7-good level). The results showed that, although teachers possessed an adequate level of digital research skills, this could vary depending on transversal skills such as creativity and entrepreneurship, with large differences when these skills were at a basic level. Furthermore, depending on whether teachers had research experience in XR technology, cryptocurrencies, facial authentication systems, wearables or robotics, amongst others, this significantly affected the level of digital competence in research. The added value of this study lies on the one hand, in the fact that there are hardly any studies that analyse this subject; and on the other hand, the implications that this could have for institutions to launch training initiatives for their teaching staff in emerging technologies, as well as in transversal competences in any disciplinary field.