Development and Validation of a Digital Competence Scale for Teachers at Higher Education level

Digital competence integrates knowledge, skills, and attitudes essential for effective utilisation of digital technologies. This study aimed to develop and validate a Digital Competence Scale for in-service higher education teachers to measure six key digital competencies: technical competence, information processing competence, content creation competence, cybersecurity competence, cloud computing competence, and artificial intelligence competence. Grounded in extensive literature of digital competence, ICT and digital education, an initial pool of 25 items was developed using the prominently identified international digital competence frameworks. After initial scrutiny through content and expert validity, the scale was piloted on the data of 200 teachers. This data was used for exploratory factor analysis. For further scale validation, two models of the same scale were made. The first model was based on the six-dimensional conceptual framework, and the other model was based on exploratory factor analysis results. Both models were compared using confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, the 6-dimensional scale demonstrated strong psychometric properties supporting the scale’s use in educational and professional contexts.