La competencia digital en el grado de enfermería de la Universidad de Huelva

Abstract

The enormous amount of data, continuous and present information, interactive, versatile and accessible in any social facet and without physical borders, characterize the enormous current social dynamism that defines the society of information and communication. The exponential growth of the New Technologies prevents us from being aware of the advances that are continually overcome and displaced by others without being assimilated socially. The information linked to the world of technologies has lead the introduction of the term Information Technologies and Communication, better known by its acronym, ICT. Turning information into knowledge, through a critical and reflective attitude, is a challenge that the University has to face. The study, teaching, research and knowledge transfer are pillars of the university system and, as such, are based on information. The influence of ICT in education invites us to change the traditional teaching-learning model to a learning model in which teachers are not the center of information and the students are who must take an active attitude through the acquisition of competencies which allow them to adopt adequate strategies for the search, selection, interpretation and processing of information. It is about learning to learn and today it is not possible without the necessary skills to use them properly. In the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), guaranteeing the acquisition of digital competences will have repercussions on the training of undergraduate students and will ultimately influence the growth of the body of knowledge in nursing sciences through research. The need to know how our students use ICT in their learning, their digital competences or their attitude towards ICT, among other issues, lead us to propose this observational and descriptive study with a prospective and cross-sectional approach, on a sample of 527 students of the Nursing Degree at the University of Huelva.The data were obtained through the INCOTIC-Grade questionnaire designed by Gisbert, Espuny & González, (2011) with a Cronbach alpha of 0.910 and a Spearman-Brown coefficient of 0.628 in our study. For the descriptive analysis, Student's t-test and ANOVA of one factor or their corresponding non-parametric of Mann-Whitney U and KrusKal-Wallis test were used for the qualitative variables and the Spearman rho correlation coefficient for the ordinal ones. At the moment, the lack of a computer or the lack of access to the network does not constitute an obstacle to acquire digital competences. The youngest students, mostly from first year,are self¬considered as the most competent digitally; however, the general digital proficiency index is deficient for a university level. Although they use the most usual programs, they do not access the network to search for information or use resources to store and treat it. In terms of attitude, the highest scores are obtained from the assessment of networked learning activities. Students valued ICT as essential for learning, even though the training received was not adequate.Regarding gender, statistically significant differences were found both in the attitude towards ICTs and in the perception of competences. It is men who show the highest values. Students who have been self-trained have a higher attitude and a better perception of competence compared with those who have received formal training. However, the higher perceived quality on training increases both the attitude and the perception of competence. A reflection from university institutions and, particularly, from the Faculty of Nursing which allows the design of educational and methodological policies that guarantee the real change to a context in which the ICT are fundamental, especially when are the students who do not perceive that they are receiving quality training despite understanding it as essential for their learning. As an application to teaching practice, we present the Nursing Practicum Portal (Teaching Innovation Award PID-151721, University of Huelva, 2017), resource for teaching and management of a subject that entails complex planning and organization, which can be extrapolated to contexts with a large number of participants.