Digital competence in health education (DCiHE): A transferrable framework for curriculum development

Digital Literacy (DL) is a key-enabler for citizens to fully participate in society, life-long learning for personal or professional reasons, and employability. For healthcare, it is a required foundation factor to deliver the NHS 2020 digital transformation agenda and beyond. Therefore, educational institutions have a duty to ensure that learners graduate with the digital skills necessary to succeed. This work-based research investigated how DL could be conceptualised in the healthcare curricula, and subsequently how tools/processes for embedding it in various programmes could be developed. The research was carried out from a pragmatist perspective as a series of case studies employing an interactive, mixed-methods design. Initially, the EU DigComp DL framework was investigated for its suitability to classify and quantify the DL of students and staff. Informed by the framework, a series of activity-based learning designs were used to embed digital literacy in the curriculum and explore the tools/processes created for its embedding. Drawing on the findings of the exploratory phase of the investigation, the tools were updated, refined and re-evaluated. Finally, curriculum-design models, processes and tools to support embedding DL into courses were created with the aim at enhancing local practice and, due to their creation and the consequent study of the relative findings, it can be supported that the DigComp framework could be developed as a tool suitable to describe and quantify the digital characteristics of learners and teachers. The proposed design approach identified the necessary elements for embedding DL in the curriculum. The developed tools/processes, based on the DigComp framework approach, enable the establishment of metrics of digital literacy, and evaluate learner engagement and attainment.