Methodological Component of Digital Competence of Researchers and Academic Staff: The results of a statistical experiment

Abstract

Тhe article examines the level of formation of the methodological component of digital competence among researchers and academic staff based on the analysis of results from a statement experiment conducted within the distance course «Development of Digital Competence of Research and Academic Staff Through Open Educational and Scientific Information Systems». The survey involved 344 respondents, predominantly academic staff from higher education institutions of III-IV accreditation levels, aged 36-45 years with over 10 years of work experience. The study of the methodological component of digital competence was carried out through analysis of respondents’ use of basic tools for creating educational and methodological materials: text and spreadsheet processors and presentation editors. The choice of these tools is justified by their universality, independence from discipline or education level, ability to create both traditional and digital educational resources, and support for collaborative work through cloud technologies. The research results showed that Microsoft Office products (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint). At the same time, there is significant penetration of Google cloud services (Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides). Alternative tools, including LaTeX publishing systems, Prezi, Canva, and others, are much less popular. It was found that most respondents use several tools in parallel, with the most common combination being Microsoft and Google products. Analysis of relationships between socio-demographic characteristics and digital tool choices showed that younger teachers more frequently use Google services, institutional leaders demonstrate the highest level of usage across all service types, while non-teaching staff show the lowest level of tool diversification. Based on the obtained results, recommendations were formulated for planning professional development programs and developing digital competence among different categories of staff, particularly regarding access to corporate versions of the most common tools and organization of training in advanced features of spreadsheet processors and cloud services.