# An empirical study on the evaluation and influencing factors of digital competence of Chinese teachers for TVET

## TL;DR

This study evaluates the digital skills of Chinese TVET teachers and identifies factors influencing their competence.

## Contribution

A competency system and assessment tool for measuring digital competence in Chinese TVET teachers were developed and validated.

## Key findings

- The competency system effectively measures digital competence among Chinese TVET teachers.
- Internal and external factors, except gender, influence teachers' digital competence.
- Recommendations for training TVET teachers' digital skills were proposed based on findings.

## Abstract

The digital competence of TVET (technical and vocational education and training) teacher is the key to the digital development of TVET. Improving the digital competence of TVET teachers is of great significance to accelerate the digital transformation process of TVET. However, there are still few researches on digital competence of TVET. The aim of this study is to describe the self-cognition of digital competence of Chinese teachers for TVET. For this purpose, based on the development characteristics of China’s TVET, a standard system for digital competence of TVET teachers in China was established, including digital mindset and attitude, digital knowledge and skills, digital education and teaching, digital care and support, and digital collaboration and development. Based on this, an assessment tool was developed to investigate the current situation of competence of 2,514 in-service TVET teachers in China. The results show that the competency system is an effective tool to measure the digital competence of Chinese TVET teachers, and other internal and external factors except gender have different degrees of influence on the digital competence of teachers. According to the results of this study, different suggestions are put forward to train the digital competence of TVET teachers.