Itziar Garcia: “As we properly select and use knowledge previously acquired to respond effectively to different situations in life, we become more and more competent.”

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Itziar Garcia: “As we properly select and use knowledge previously acquired to respond effectively to different situations in life, we become more and more competent.”

INTERVIEW

Itziar Garcia: “As we properly select and use knowledge previously acquired to respond effectively to different situations in life, we become more and more competent.”

Itziar García, Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences researcher, defended her international dissertation on July 22 on the Eskoriatza campus. The work, entitled “Students’ Digital Competence: Basque Secondary School Students’ Digital Competence Development Through Eki Educational Resource” earned the designation of Very Good. We spoke with the researcher about her dissertation.

2021·10·06

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On July 22, Itziar Garcia (Oñati, 1990) defended her international doctoral dissertation, “Students’ Digital Competence: Basque Secondary School Students’ Digital Competence Development Through Eki Educational Resource.” The event was held on the Eskoriatza campus. We asked the researcher about her work, which earned the designation of Very Good.

What is the EKI educational project?

The EKI project is a novel teaching material. It develops the Basque Curriculum based on competencies and through pedagogy of integration. The EKI project began to be applied in Basque elementary schools in the 2013-2014 academic year, and was later extended to all of Compulsory Secondary Education in six areas: Basque, Spanish, English, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences. The main objective of the project is to direct comprehensive education and, to achieve this, it has a certain set of characteristics. In short, it focuses on the development of competencies. We all know that competence and entrepreneurship are closely related, that is, as we properly select and use knowledge previously acquired respond effectively to different situations in life, we become more and more competent.

What conclusions have you reached with your work?

For example, through EKI some areas of digital competence (information, communication and content creation) are developed more than others (security and problem solving). It should be noted that we worked only on analyzing didactic material, so other characteristics would also have to be taken into account: the performance of the teacher, the digital competence of the student, etc.

What samples did you use in your research?

In my research, I focused on content analysis, that is, I analyzed the EKI didactic material itself and identified links with the digital competence framework. Based on this, and as I mentioned earlier, the didactic material helps develop some digital skills much more than others.

What new avenues of research does your dissertation open?

Through other studies, the topic can be further researched and developed. For example, it would be very interesting to investigate what happens at the school, or rather in the classroom, by also measuring the digital competence of the students. That way we would have a more complete picture of digital competence.