# Digital Competence and Gender: Teachers in Training. A Case Study
## 1 Introduction  
In initial teacher training, ICTs are simultaneously a tool and an important knowledge [1; 2; 3] because they promote universal education and meaningful learning and contribute to professional performance and development and the management and organisation of educational resources [4]. Unless teachers possess digital skills, there is little chance that they may help their students to master this core competence. Yet, as future citizens with full rights and duties, it is a skill they need, since ICTs are a key element in social change [5; 6]. In this respect, [7] indicated that the benefits of these technologies depend on the use made of them, but they nevertheless have the potential to facilitate communication, reduce the barriers of space and time, improve quality of life, be a valuable resource for learning [8] and provide equitable access to information and communication. Ultimately, what is meant by digital competence? It can be defined as the ability to use technology effectively to optimise our daily lives [3; 9; 10; 11]. Numerous studies have been conducted on digital competence in teacher training students [2; 3; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20], showing a strong interest in it. However, one of the most extensive and important studies of digital competence in the context of the Spanish education system was conducted by [21] with a sample of more than 2000 young people aged between 14 and 19 years old. To perform their study, they developed a questionnaire, the COTASEBA (high school students' technological competence questionnaire), which they administered in several autonomous regions. This same instrument has been employed in subsequent studies [13; 22; 23; 24; 25]. Besides the COTASEBA, other instruments have beendeveloped to assess digital skills, such as the one designed by [2], but the COTASEBA has undoubtedly been one of the most influential in Spain. Previous studies have reported that students make frequent use of ICTs [25; 26], spend more than 15 h a week performing tasks that involve use of these technologies [27], perceive themselves as competent and consider that their ability to search for information on the internet, analyse it, manage it, organise it, criticise it and assess it is very good [28; 29] and can apply technology to design materials in learning contexts [30]. However, young people primarily use ICTs for social and communicative purposes and may encounter difficulties when applying them to learning contexts because they do not possess sufficient skills to perform creative or complex tasks such as programming or those related to safety and problem-solving. Age, gender, and educational level were frequently reported as significant to digital skills [31; 32]. Young adults, ages 18-26, were the most connected age group, also, those with higher levels of education [33], but that did not mean their Internet uses were homogeneous. In this sense, most authors do not consider that the youngsters actually have the digital capabilities that they consider they have [34]. The lack or paucity of digital competence, termed the second digital divide or digital gap [20; 35], is one of the variables frequently correlated with gender [12; 24; 28; 29; 30; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42]. Previous studies suggested that the higher level of use of a variety of websites by men increased their knowledge of the web, which in turn caused them to use this new technology more often than women. Therefore, as women expand their use of different types of websites, their knowledge and use of the web should expand [43]). Women seem to be less competent both in ICTs in general and in access and use of the internet [35]. This also includes female teachers [37]. Nevertheless, not all studies have found these differences in digital competence when analysing the variable of gender [18; 20; 44], even with teachers in training [45; 46]. In this sense, [47] found that men and women do not differ much in their online skills.