Vision of Digital Competences of Primary School Students and Teachers in Bulgaria in Educational Documentation of the Subject “Computer Modelling”

This paper is the first part of a larger study on the vision of digital competences of primary school students and teachers in Bulgaria in the educational documentation. It attempts to explore the place and the approaches for developing digital competencies in the educational documentation concerning the Bulgarian primary school subject “Computer Modelling” (CM) and to define the necessary competencies for primary school teachers to develop the digital competencies of students within this subject. The primary research methods employed in the study are curriculum mapping, document analysis and comparative analysis of educational documentation as well as textbooks and methodological guides for primary school teachers. The results of the study demonstrate that the curricula predominantly focus on the development of programming skills, occasionally at the expense of other areas of digital competence. It raises the need to reconsider the CM curriculum to ensure a more balanced emphasis on different competence areas, which could also be achieved through their integration into other school subjects. The importance of the professional competence of the teachers for successful development of students’ digital competencies is also highlighted in the paper. Some concerns regarding the efficacy of teaching the CM subject are raised accordingly. The emerging need for an in-depth empirical study of the factual state of the digital competences of teachers and students is indicated.