PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ NATURAL SCIENCE DIGITAL LITERACY COMPETENCE IN DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

This study describes a research focused on primary teachers’ evaluation of their students’ digital literacy as a basic competence in the structure of natural science literacy of research and comprehension competence. With the term, primary teachers we mean teachers of first three grades of compulsory school. The comparison of basic computer skills between Generation Z and Generation Alpha revealed, contrary to expectations, a very small progress. The consequence of this circumstance are the problems associated with the implementation of natural science curricular goals in digital environments of remote teaching in school closure period. A questionnaire given to 176 primary teachers, revealed which digital learning environments could be chosen for science lessons and which curricular goals could/could not be achieved with this level of Generation Alpha students’ digital literacy competence. The results showed that the digital environment is more problematic and unfavorable for Generation Alpha in the field of natural science, as teachers showed a higher frequency of avoiding natural science goals than social science content. Keywords: distance learning environment, generation Alpha, natural science digital literacy competence, natural science education