21st-century competences: The relation of ICT competences with higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences in university students

The Knowledge Society, along with the non-stop growing technological evolution, entails university students acquiring new competences for them to be successful in society. These are called 21st-century competences that come as high-skill competences - higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences - and information and communication technologies (ICT) competences - technological, pedagogical and ethical. This study aims to determine the link between ICT competences and high-skill competences. A correlational study was conducted whose sample was formed by 983 students studying degrees at the Universidad de Valencia (Spain), selected by non-probabilistic incidental sampling and collecting information with two questionnaires. The results indicate a positive and statistically significant relation between ICT competences with the other two considered sets: higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences. Moreover, pedagogical competences are more related with the two high-skill competence sets. This suggests the need for training plans that favour learning 21st-century competences and for stressing pedagogical competences in ICT.