Research On The Construction Of Rural Teachers’ Digital Competency Model

Teachers are the core element of educational transformation,and teacher competency and literacy improvement are key to the digital transformation of education.However,the digital competency of rural teachers is still a bottleneck that restricts the comprehensive digital transformation work of the education system.In practice,the digital competency gap between rural and urban teachers is increasing;the uniqueness and personalized factors of rural teachers’ participation in education digital transformation work are neglected.There is an urgent need to construct a digital competency model for rural teachers to guide their education digitalization practices and to provide a basis and support for their competency enhancement work.Therefore,this study focuses on the core issue of constructing a digital competency model for rural teachers,from competency theory,requirement-competency matching theory,and teacher professional development theory,focuses on the digital competency quality of teachers’ competent educational practices in rural educational fields,collects and screens digital competency elements of rural teachers,constructs a digital competency model for rural teachers,and develops a corresponding competency assessment tool.We collected and screened the digital competency elements of rural teachers,constructed a digital competency model for rural teachers,developed a corresponding competency assessment tool,and applied it in practice to verify the validity and reliability of the model.This study involved two stages of model construction and validation,and was divided into four areas according to the research process: extraction of digital competency elements,model revision,assessment tool development,and pilot testing of the current level of rural teachers.Firstly,the digital competency elements of rural teachers were collected.First,using the method of rooted theory research,61 papers,10 policies and 13 reports related to digital competency of rural teachers at home and abroad were screened and included in the scope of text analysis,and the Nvivo software was used to code the content of the materials one by one,finally forming 4 primary coding nodes,10 secondary coding nodes and 39 tertiary coding nodes;second,using the method of behavioral event interviews,eight front-line rural The second method was to use the behavioral event interview method to collect key events that occurred in the educational practices of 8frontline rural teachers using digital technology,and the formed interview transcripts of nearly 56,000 words were coded to summarize and extract the digital competency elements of rural teachers embodied in the text,resulting in the extraction of 12 additional elements,including student competency development.The results of the elements collected by the two methods were complemented with each other to initially construct a digital competency model of rural teachers,which covered 4 primary dimensions,10 secondary dimensions,and 51 competency elements.Secondly,the digital competency model of rural teachers was revised.First,we used questionnaires to distribute verification questionnaires to frontline rural teachers to understand the extent of rural teachers’ agreement with each element in the preliminary constructed model,and used SPSS software to analyze the data of 106 questionnaires and calculate the importance scores of each element,and the results showed that the scores of five elements,namely,digital value awareness,behavioral discipline,digital guidance ability,evaluation reflection innovation and educational data management,were slightly The results showed that the scores of five elements,namely,digital value awareness,behavioral constraints,digital guidance ability,evaluating reflective innovation and educational data management,were slightly less than 0.8,indicating that the agreement of the front-line teachers was low,so the five elements were deleted;second,using the Delphi method,four rural teachers and six university teachers were consulted by experts,and the revised model was further refined according to the results,and the experts were consulted again.After the two rounds,the experts agreed on the composition of the model elements.Through the screening and revision of the elements in the two methods,a scientific and reasonable competency model was finally obtained,which contained four primary dimensions,nine secondary dimensions,and 36 competency elements,and was named the "4-9-3-6" digital competency model for rural teachers.Again,we developed a digital competency assessment tool for rural teachers.The teachers’ self-assessment questionnaire was developed according to the elements of the digital competency model of rural teachers by referring to the development of digital competency assessment tools at home and abroad.In order to verify the validity and credibility of the instrument,a pre-survey was conducted for rural teachers in City C and Province J by using questionnaires,and 173 questionnaires were analyzed by using SPSS software.The results of the item analysis indicated that there were significant differences in the high and low groupings of each question element,i.e.,p < 0.01,indicating that each item had good differentiation and reliability;the results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that 9 factors were extracted from the 36 element items of the assessment instrument and corresponded to the 9 secondary dimensions of the model,confirming the good structural level of the assessment instrument;the results of the reliability analysis The results showed that the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was0.931,indicating that the instrument had a very high level of reliability.The results show that the content and structure of the instrument have good reliability and validity,which is a good foundation for the subsequent validation and application of the model.Finally,a pilot test was conducted to measure the current level of digital competency of rural teachers.Using the developed digital competency assessment tool for rural teachers,a formal survey was conducted with 462 questionnaires using SPSS software.The results of the descriptive statistical analysis showed that the overall mean score of digital competency of rural teachers was 3.37,which was in the middle to upper level,and the scores of the four dimensions were digital learning(3.38),digital foundation(3.37),digital nurturing(3.37),and digital leadership(3.36),which were in the middle to upper level.Among them,digital learning competency scores had the highest mean value and digital leadership competency scores had the lowest mean value;the results of the analysis of variance found that there were significant differences in rural teachers’ digital competency levels at the age,teaching age,education and school type levels,and no significant differences at the gender,job title and performance level levels.The results of the status quo pilot test well validated the validity of the rural teachers’ digital competency model,and suggested three suggestions for the application of the rural teachers’ digital competency model,which were to assist the recruitment and selection process of rural teachers,to guide the training and development path of rural teachers,and to improve the evaluation and assessment mechanism of rural teachers.