Evaluation of 1st cycle students’ Digital Competencies: a methodological proposal

This article presents the conceptual and methodological design geared towards the construction of a student’s digital competences educational device in the school context, developed as part of a master’s investigation, in the educational innovation field at University of Lisbon. The present investigation adopts an innovative methodological approach that involves the teachers in the construction of said device. We pretend to introduce the designed methodological proposal, in accordance with the principles of the Design-Based Research (DBR) and the objectives of a qualitative educational investigation. The methodological proposal values the terrain specificities and the interaction with basic education 1st cycle teachers at the Amadora municipality (Portugal), particularly in the refinement of the evaluation device. For the purposes of this paper, we focus on the methodological definition process, describing thoroughly the different stages of the construction of our device and presenting the scientific basis that justify the chosen options. The different stages are composed of distinct data collection methods and data analysis techniques, in adequacy with the different natures of our data inputs. It was possible to confirm previous studies results regarding the potentialities of DBR in the creation of pedagogical artifacts and to critically assess what are the main potentialities and obstacles according to the adopted procedures. In summary, we believe that this methodological proposal could serve as a basis for investigations that aim to develop similar student’s competence assessment tools in educational context.