Abstract:

Digital technologies are applied in the educational process more and more frequently, which changes the character of education. New technologies allow a rapid development of the e-learning environment and new opportunities for educational interactions, as well as for the management of the educational process emerge. Teachers can be considered the main actors of the above processes and they are also assigned the responsibility for the quality of the educational process. In an information society, high degrees of expertise, pedagogical and psychological knowledge and didactic skills are expected from them, but also sufficient digital competencies and their application in the educational process are required from all educators.

In the proposed paper, the authors present the partial results of their research on secondary school teachers’ digital competencies in the Slovak Republic, which represent the basic precondition for the realization of various forms of distance teaching – including live-streaming - effectively. The aim of the questionnaire survey was to confirm the existence of association between teachers’ digital competencies and the application of appropriate processes in online teaching. The investigation was realized at the beginning of the academic year 2020/2021 in secondary schools on the sample of 1,510 secondary school teachers.

As strong correlations were calculated, the results confirmed that developing secondary school teachers’ digital competencies is closely related to the quality of the practical realization of online processes in education in secondary schools in the conditions of the Slovak Republic.