Digital Competences and Years of Access to Technologies Among Chilean University Students: An Analysis Based on the DIGCOMP Framework

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In their article, the authors studied digital competences and years of access to technologies in Chilean university students. The analysis was based on the DIGCOMP framework. The main comments that can contribute to improving the quality of the article:

1. It is necessary to write in which year the study was conducted. This information should be placed everywhere where the key characteristics of the study are given, i.e. in the Abstract, Introduction and in section 2 Materials and Methods.

2. In the Introduction, it should be written what new the presented study brings to science? What is its added value? The authors did not justify the necessity and value of their work.

3. The article lacks hypotheses or research questions. They should be formulated. In the description of the results of the study or in the Conclusions, these hypotheses or questions should be referred to.

4. The numbers should be written correctly throughout the article. Computer programs omit zero in the notation of fractions, so instead of 0.91, the notation .91 is used. In my opinion, this is not correct and should not appear in a scientific article. Therefore, such numbers should be written correctly in the text of the article, in tables and in Figures.

5. Subsection 2.2 contains Table 1 and its detailed description. This description is completely unnecessary. After all, all the information is contained in the table. Why is it described twice? In addition, there are errors in this description and in the table.

Table 1:

a) Admission (female and male)?

b) Gender (Female: 2,209 – I think 2,209)?

Description before Table 1:

a) The wording is unclear: ”Fifty-six percent (2,441) were 2021 entrants and 44% (1,919) 254 were 2022.”

b) There is an error in the sentence: 48.7% (2,209) were female, 51.2% (2,098) were male and 1.2% (53) identified 255 themselves as "other (non-binary)". Table 1 is 50.7% female.

However, I believe that instead of correcting it, all text before and after table 1 should be removed.

6. In Table 2, correct the commas to dots.

7. Tables and References should be formatted according to the Sustainability journal guidelines.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the manuscript is relevant. It is devoted to the assessment of students' digital competencies. This topic is of interest from a theoretical and practical point of view.

The article is structured and contains the necessary sections. The relevance of the study is substantiated. References to sources correspond to the topic of the article, relevant sources were used.

The empirical part is of scientific interest.

However, to improve the understanding of the content of the article, it needs revision.

1. The authors use the concept of "digital natives", but do not disclose what they meant. In Marc Prensky's understanding, "digital natives" have "spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers and videogames.." In this regard, it is not entirely clear why the students in the study ("digital natives") may have less than 5 years of experience using digital technologies (Table 1 and line 272).

2. "The main objective of this research was to describe the level of digital competence (DC) in first-year undergraduate students of a Chilean public university, considering the gender variable" (lines 167-168). But there is nothing about gender differences in the results and conclusions obtained.

3. The average age of students is not indicated in the empirical part.

4. It is not entirely clear what the difference is between DIGCOMP-PED and COMPDIG-EDUSUP. What are the features of COMPDIG-EDUSUP? How were the results of student assessments processed?

Answers to these questions will help improve the quality of the article and increase the interest of readers.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article has been revised with accordance to the reviewer's remarks and suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors took into account all the recommendations proposed in the first review and improved the manuscript. Authors added a study on the concept of "digital native" and improved the conclusions. I recommend the article for publication