Reciprocal peer observation for enhancing teachers’ digital competence: insights from educational robotics implementation

Abstract The integration of digital tools and educational robotics in schools, along with the digital transformation of society, highlights the urgent need to strengthen the digital competence of both teachers and students. This study adopts a quasi-experimental pretest/posttest design with a comparison group to examine the impact of a reciprocal peer observation (RPO) cycle on the enhancement of teachers' digital competence, both in terms of self-perception and practical application of robotics-related skills in the classroom. A total of 51 in-service schoolteachers from 13 schools in Barcelona participated in the study. The results comparing the intervention and comparison groups indicate that teachers who participated in an RPO cycle reported statistically significant improvements in teaching and learning and empowering learners areas in terms of their perceptions of digital competence. Furthermore, the integration of educational robotics skills into classroom practice, based on a competency-based case study, proved to be more effective for teachers who participated in an RPO cycle than the improvements observed for teachers who completed a conventional training programme. These findings reinforce the effectiveness of RPO as a collaborative professional development tool, highlighting its potential to enhance teachers' digital competence, improve educational practices through constructive feedback, and better integrate technology, with significant implications for teaching and learning by ultimately enriching student learning outcomes.