Fostering Secondary School Chemistry Teachers’ Digital Competences in Accordance with the Digital Competence Framework for Educators

This paper presents the results of research aimed at identifying and assessing the impact of the innovative educational program "Teaching Chemistry in Secondary Schools: Fostering Digital and Scientific Literacy." The programme aimed to help chemistry teachers develop digital competence in accordance with the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) requirements. The research sample consisted of secondary school chemistry teachers combined (N=15) from three Slovak regions. The research was conducted during the first term of the 2024/2025 school year. The innovative educational programme consisted of 6 modules, covering a total of 50 hours. This innovative educational programme aimed to provide teachers with access to knowledge on teaching chemistry, with a focus on fostering digital competence through activating methods such as inquiry-based teaching, digital technology-supported teaching, and the use of digital summative and formative assessment tools. The research instrument was the DigCompEdu Check-in Questionnaire, completed by the teachers before and after finishing the educational programme. A comparison of the pre-test and post-test results indicated an overall improvement in teachers’ digital competence, moving from explorers to integrators. The analysis of their results in the area of Teaching and Learning indicated an increased frequency of teachers using digital tools to implement various teaching methods focused on developing students’ independent learning and group cooperation. The analysis of their results in the Assessment area indicated an increase in teachers’ monitoring of students’ progress and their analysis of information and feedback gathered about students. However, teachers still opted to use digital assessment tools less frequently. Therefore, it is necessary to make various digital assessment tools, addressing specific chemistry topics, accessible to teachers.