The digital landscape is constantly changing, and consequently, needs for digital competence are also evolving. Formal education plays a crucial role in ensuring that everyone has equal opportunities to develop digital competencies. However, ways of using digital technologies in schools are still rather narrow: basic productivity applications and purposes such as presenting and searching for information dominate the use, while more applied and creative use plays a very small role (e.g., Fraillon, 2024). The present study pertains to the Finnish context, where several studies have highlighted gaps in creative and collaborative uses of digital technologies in schools (Fagerlund et al., 2024; Häkkinen et al., 2025; Oinas et al., 2023).

Teacher education is in a key role in equipping future teachers for fostering their students’ digital competence and in encouraging them to apply digital technologies in meaningful ways. Pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) digital competence has been found to be affected both by their own technology-related characteristics, such as attitudes and perceived ease of technology use, and the support of the teacher training institute (Tondeur et al., 2018). While it appears to succeed in offering PSTs opportunities to familiarise themselves with digital technologies (Hämäläinen et al., 2021), more effort needs to be put on ensuring that teacher training contributes to PSTs’ professional digital competence in an authentic and relevant way (e.g., Gudmundsdottir & Hatlevik, 2018). Course modules that specifically focus on digital competence are necessary, but at the same time, it would be important for these competences to be part of teacher training on a broad scale in order to foster their integration into the PSTs’ pedagogical understanding and support experimentation and reflection (e.g., Gudmundsdottir & Hatlevik, 2018; Tondeur et al., 2018). Collaborative ways of learning, connecting theory and practice, as well as teacher educators serving as role models are essential in making the learning of digital competence meaningful (Reisoğlu & Çebi, 2020; Vesisenaho et al., 2024).

This study addresses PSTs at two different phases of studies: beginning (first year) and advanced (4th or 5th year). This proposal focuses on the following research questions:

1. How do PSTs evaluate different aspects of a) their digital competence and b) their stance towards digital technologies in education?

2. Do these evaluations differ between beginning and advanced PSTs?

We used a questionnaire that was informed by digital competence studies and frameworks such as ICILS (Fraillon et al., 2020), DigComp (Vuorikari et al., 2022), and the Finnish Framework for Digital Competence (EDUFI, n.d.). Data collection took place at the beginning of compulsory course modules on digital competence: “Introduction to Digital Technologies for Learning” for beginning PSTs and “Applying Digital Technologies for Learning” for advanced PSTs. The data were collected at the very beginning of these courses in order to orient the PSTs to the topic while also avoiding recency bias stemming from the course contents. We wanted to gauge their digital competence more generally rather than examine the immediate impact of the digital competence focused course modules.

The questionnaire consisted of 33 self-assessment statements about digital competence and 11 statements about the PSTs’ stance related to digital technologies. Responses were recorded using a five-point Likert scale. Background information (e.g., gender, year of birth, earlier experience with digital technology) was also collected. Respondents included 324 PSTs in primary education from a Finnish university: 195 (60.2%) were beginning PSTs (BE) and 129 (39.8%) were advanced (AD). Data were collected in two academic years: from BE in the autumn terms 2023 and 2024, and from AD in the spring terms 2024 and 2025. Altogether 260 participants (80.2%) identified as women, 61 (18.8%) as men, and three (0.9%) as other or preferred not to say. This is a representative gender distribution for Finnish PSTs (Vipunen – Education Statistics Finland, n.d.). Median age was 22 years (BE: Mdn = 20 years; AD: Mdn = 23 years). Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version 30. Based on an exploratory factor analysis (EFA), four composite variables were created for digital competence: “basic use of productivity software” (5 items, α = .754), “basic audiovisual skills” (3 items, α = .749), “safe and responsible use” (6 items, α = .805), and “advanced creative use” (6 items, α = .860). The first two variables represent basic digital skills: using office applications and doing simple image and video editing. Safe and responsible use covers aspects ranging from device and data security to digital literacy and ethical questions. Advanced creative use covers topics such as programming, robotics, animation, game design, and using virtual or augmented reality. EFA was also used to form two composite variables for the respondents’ stance towards digital technologies in education: “importance of teaching digital competence” (3 items, α = .871) and “value of applying digital technology” (4 items, α = .733). The former includes general attitudes towards teaching digital competence at different education levels, and the latter comprises views related to the potential of digital technologies for learning and applying them as a teacher. After creating the composite variables, Mann-Whitney U tests were conducted to compare the digital competence variables and the stance variables between phases of studies and genders.

PSTs perceived their competence regarding safe and responsible use as good (M = 4.01, SD = 0.53) and advanced creative use as poor or very poor (M = 1.61, SD = 0.60), with basic use of productivity software (M = 3.54, SD = 0.56) and basic audiovisual skills (M = 2.61, SD = 0.79) falling in between. Mann-Whitney U tests showed that AD scored higher than BE in the basic use of productivity software (z = 5.134, p < .001) and advanced creative use (z = 6.219, p < .001), with no significant differences in safe and responsible use and basic audiovisual skills. Although advanced creative use appears to become slightly more familiar during teacher training, this area should be given particular focus to help future teachers support their students’ competencies. Importance of teaching digital competence (M = 4.63, SD = 0.49) was evaluated higher than the value of applying digital technology (M = 3.73, SD = 0.64). AD scored higher than BE both in the former (z = 2.443, p = .015) and the latter (z = 2.248, p = .025), which may reflect increased understanding of the multifaceted aspects of digital pedagogy as well as growing personal relevance before transitioning from pre-service to in-service teachers. Men scored higher than women in advanced creative use (z = 2.82, p = .005). No significant gender differences were found in any other competence or stance variables. Advanced creative skills may be related to using digital technology in leisure activities which is less common among women (cf., Tondeur et al., 2018). This finding supports the need to strengthen all PSTs’ competence and confidence in the more advanced areas. This work will continue with qualitative data collection where beginning and advanced PSTs reflect on their meaningful learning experiences related to digital competence.

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