Improvement of Digital Multimodal Abilities in Chilean High School Students

Summary

The increasing use of technology in schools has transformed the way in which
adolescents understand and transmit information in digital environments. This implies
studying the use of technology from a digital literacy perspective and analyzing how
students use technology for create and communicate effectively in different academic
contexts.
With attention to understand this process, we propose to analyze the dimensions of
digital multimodal abilities in Chilean High School students. Additionally, we propose to
explore the strategies used by students and teachers for developing these abilities in
classroom’s contexts.
Thus, this study will provide research’s methodologies for analyzing the factors
involved in digital multimodal process when students create products digitally.
Furthermore, this project will be a contribution in the domain of educational measurement,
given the regional lack of evaluation instruments for measure multimodal skills in digital
composition processes.

Description of the organization and its history

The Observatory of Digital Educational Practices (OPED) is a PUC’s center created

for the purpose of developing projects that aims to strengthening technologic practices of
future teachers who currently are UC students. OPED has been created in 2016 through the
Performance Agreement (2013-2016) in order to improve quality teaching and initial
teacher training. With this intention, OPED embraces the use of pedagogical knowledge
about disciplinary literacy and the incorporation of ICT resources in a digital context.

Statement of the problem

 Currently, adolescents produce all kind of contents in different digital platforms,

nevertheless, this does not imply that they are able to elaborate digital academic contents.

For this reason, it is necessary to develop in future teachers the strategies for monitoring

and asses the digital multimodal abilities. Hence, the main objective of this project aims to

1) analyze the factors involved in digital multimodal process when students create products

digitally and 2) construct evaluation instruments for assess multimodal skills in digital

compositions.

Project description

In order to accomplish these objectives, this project will consist of a concurrent

mixed design study. The quantitative phase will consist of the measuring digital multimodal

skills dimensions. In the meantime, a qualitative phase will explore the strategies used by

students and teachers during digital multimodal compositions. Both phases can contribute

to a more robust and integrative interpretation of relevant factors involved in digital

multimodal processes.

Project timeline