Boosting Digital Competence: Impact of an Educational Program on Primary-to-Secondary Transitioning Students from a Gender Perspective

Abstract The present study analyses the effect of an educational program on the digital competence (DC) level of 126 sixth-grade students from three schools in a mid-sized urban area of Spain, based on the DigComp framework, which defines five areas: information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving. A validated questionnaire was applied to analyse the students’ DC level before and after the educational program. Findings reveal improvements in all DC areas, except area 5. The gender variable was analysed, revealing that female students outperformed male students after the program developed. Results suggest that more educational initiatives and further research are necessary to train students in digital literacy and to study the factors contributing to gender differences. In this context, this work provides practitioners with a set of open-access resources, experimentally validated for their effectiveness in enhancing students’ DC.