Empowering university teachers through digital competence assessment

This paper focuses attention on the need to account for the specific content of digital competences in the teaching profession. The study substantiates its original methodology, which relies on a quantitative procedure based on the Likert scale as an instrument of self-reflection in determining individuals' attitudes to particular issues. The empirical study examines the level of digital competence among university teachers in Kazan, Russia. Different areas of professional digital competence are compared considering the socio-demographic characteristics of gender, age, and work experience. The study demonstrates that teachers, regardless of their gender, age, and experience, successfully apply information and communication technologies (ICT) in their professional practice. However, women are more likely to have a more active digital position and young specialists tend to overestimate their digital competence. To improve the effectiveness of ICT implementation in education, programs for the development of digital skills should be developed with consideration of teachers' age and work experience. In addition, it is recommended to conduct further research on the problem using different statistical methods