Article Gold Open Access 2025

The digital gender gap among undergraduate students in several Spanish universities; La brecha digital de género en los estudiantes de grado en varias universidades españolas

RIED-Revista Iberoamericana de Educacion a Distancia
Journal · Vol. 28 · Issue 1 · pp. 371-395
Abstract

A student’s level of digital competence affects aspects of their academic life such as progress and performance or access to degrees. This research is based on a descriptive and inferential quantitative methodology, with a survey design aimed at collecting information on an initial group of 909 participants, from different educational levels, of which the responses of 725 undergraduate students were finally analysed. The results show that women are the group with the highest mean scores, although more than half of the respondents of both genders have a high mean score. No significant differences were found when analysing the different regions of Spain based on gender. Nor were differences found when contrasting degree subject area and gender, or when grouping degrees according to whether they are included in the STEM subject block or not. Differences were appreciated in certain digital competence literacies when gender and average grade are taken into account. These results may represent an indication of a change in the digital divide identified over the past few years by various authors. The findings indicate that, while there is a need to strengthen equity in digital competence training between genders, there may be more factors influencing students' perceptions of their level of competence. © 2025, Ibero-American Association for Distance Higher Education (AIESAD). All rights reserved.

Keywords

Author Keywords

digital competence undergraduate students gender gap

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain
Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Tarragona, Spain
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
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