Introduction

The teacher is a critical element of the educational process, particularly in educational activities to transform and improve education. Currently, the significant impact of information technology (IT) on the educational field necessitates that educators possess practical digital competences that enable them to integrate technologies and implement information and communications technology (ICT) in a pedagogical manner (Tondeur et al., 2017). Under these conditions, global attention has been paid to teachers' digital competence, which necessitates the development of learning skills and the acquisition of knowledge from various sources available in contemporary society, resulting in new demands for understanding and using digital learning opportunities in the educational field. Ferrari et al. (2013) mentioned that digital competence is regarded as a transversal key competence related to many 21st-century skills (e.g., language, mathematics, learning to learn, and cultural awareness). Hence, many nations and organizations have imposed stringent requirements on teachers' digital competence, also known as 21st-century skills. The recent National Plan of Digital Competences (MINECO, 2021) from Spain, for instance, identifies the acquisition of teachers’ digital competence at all educational levels to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

Concepts related to teachers’ use of ICT

Several terms have been used to describe the teacher’s use of ICT, such as teacher's information literacy, digital literacy, and competence, ICT skills, and competency, IT skills, or technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). A strong relationship exists between these commonly used concepts. As mentioned by Tondeur et al. (2017), the ICT and IT skills of teachers refer to their technical use of ICT. In contrast, the ICT and digital competences of teachers are conceptualized as the integrated and functional use of digital knowledge, skills, and attitudes. In particular, Krumsvik (2008, 2009) highlighted that teachers' digital competence is related to the skills in using ICT with pedagogic-didactic judgment and awareness of its impact on learning strategies and students’ digital education.

However, in the field of education, digital competence and digital literacy are considerably closer (Spante et al., 2018). Paynton (2012) described digital literacy as the integration of computer, information, and media literacies. According to Martin and Grudziecki (2006) and Ferrari et al. (2013), digital literacy underpins the concept of digital competence. The following is the European Union's definition of digital competence as outlined in its framework for key competence (European Commission, 2018, p. 9):

Digital competence involves the confident, critical and responsible use of, and engagement with, digital technologies for learning, work, and participation in society. It includes information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, media literacy, digital content creation (including programming), safety (including digital well-being and competences related to cybersecurity), intellectual property related questions, problem solving and critical thinking.

Moreover, the conception of TPACK comes from Shulman (1986, 1987), in which pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) is used to explain how teachers' understanding of educational technologies and PCK interact to produce effective teaching and learning. The descriptions of the TPACK framework have then been developed through a series of publications, in which content, pedagogy, and technology are the three main components of teachers' knowledge in the TPACK model (Koehler, 2009; Koehler et al., 2013, 2014).

TPACK and the teacher’s ICT competency from the UNESCO framework (UNESCO, 2011, 2018) emphasize the technical/operational aspects of ICT and information skills development, explicitly linking these to associated pedagogy and curriculum changes. However, except for the framework of teacher's digital competence, “no existing concepts included more than a passing mention of personal dispositions/attitudes or understandings of larger issues or safety and well-being (etc.) considerations, as components of teacher education students' digital competence” (Falloon, 2020, p. 2452). Therefore, the present study describes the term teacher’s digital competence as their use of ICT because it offers a more comprehensive view of the use of technology.

The state of teachers’ digital competence in China

With the rapid advancement of technology, the immense impact and potential of ICT in education are transforming national education systems (UNESCO, 2011). China's Ministry of Education has formulated a series of educational documents to accelerate modern education by promoting the development of Education Informatization in the new era and fostering a new innovation-driven growth engine. In 2018, the Chinese government launched a series of documents related to the development of teachers' digital competence, such as the Teacher Education Revitalization Action Plan (2018–2022) (2018), Guidance on Promoting the Healthy Development of Online Education (2019), Opinions on the Ministry of Education on the Implementation of the National Primary and Secondary School Teachers’ Information Technology Application Ability Improvement Project 2.0 (2019), Guidance from the Ministry of Education on Strengthening the Application of the “Three Classrooms” (2020a), the Implementation Guide for Online Training of Kindergarten Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools (2020b), and the Highlights of the Ministry of Education (2021).

As a result of the profound impact of technology on Chinese education and the emphasis placed by the Chinese government on the use of technology in education, research on the digital competence of pre-service and in-service teachers in the Chinese context has boomed in the last five years. Among these burgeoning studies are those that focused on assessing the digital competence of pre-service and in-service teachers in the Chinese context (Wang & Ko, 2022; Wong & Moorhouse, 2021; Xu et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2022; Zhao & Zhao, 2021; Zhao et al., 2019). Moreover, other authors, such as Wu et al. (2022), Yang et al. (2022), and Zhang et al. (2021), explored the factor that can influence teachers' digital competence.

Moreover, there are numerous systematic literature reviews (SLRs) pertaining to teachers’ digital competence throughout the world. For example, Fernández-Batanero et al. (2022) reviewed digital competences for teacher professional development, Basantes-Andrade et al. (2022) concluded that standards of teacher digital competence in higher education, and Torres-Hernández and Gallego-Arrufat (2022) summarized indicators to assess pre-service teachers' digital competence in the area of security. Regarding SLRs on Chinese teachers' digital competence, only Luo et al. (2021a, 2021b) described research trends investigating whether Chinese early childhood teachers are ready for the digital transformation of their instruction. Among many research efforts on digital competence, an SLR on the digital competence of K-12 teachers in China is lacking.

Consequently, this study aims to describe the current state of the digital competence of Chinese teachers, identify the issues related to pre-service and in-service teachers, and outline a development framework for enhancing the digital competence of Chinese teachers. This study conducted an SLR around these research questions.

RQ 1.:

What are the main terms used to discuss teachers' use of technology for teaching and learning in the Chinese context?

RQ 2.:

What are the main purposes of studies related to teachers' digital competence in China, and what are their relevant findings?

RQ 3.:

What are the main characteristics of the research methods used in the selected studies?

RQ 4.:

What are the main proposals made to improve the digital competence of Chinese teachers? Moreover, which of these proposals have been tested with people?

The remainder of this work is organized as follows. The second section presents the method used to develop the SLR, including its different issues, and steps. The third section shows the results of the SLR on the content of the selected literature and discusses these findings. Finally, in the last section, we summarize the main findings and present the limitations of the study and future directions.

Method

The primary purpose of an SLR is to identify and interpret the studies in the available literature through the research questions proposed. A second purpose could be to gather evidence to identify research gaps and opportunities in areas of interest. This study used the PRISMA method (Moher et al., 2009) to conduct an SLR on publications related to teacher’s digital competence in China in five phases: (1) preliminary, (2) identification, (3) screening, (4) eligibility, and (5) analysis.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria (IC) and exclusion criteria (EC) were used to ensure that the selected works could answer the research questions described earlier. The following criteria used to include or exclude a paper were organized into five ICs.

  • IC1: The work includes the following topics “digital competence” OR “digital competency” OR “digital competence” OR “digital competencies” OR “digital literacy” OR "digital abilities” OR “digital skills” AND

  • IC2: The work is focused on the Asian context, with an emphasis on China AND

  • IC3: The work is written in English or Chinese AND

  • IC4: The work is a Journal Article OR Book OR Book Chapter OR Conference Paper AND

  • IC5: The publication is the most recent and comprehensive of the related works on the same study.

The five ECs were established as the inverse of the IC. If any of the retrieved works do not meet IC, they will be excluded.

Subsequently, we chose the databases to perform the search. The selection was based on the following requirements: the database permits the use of logical expressions or a comparable mechanism; it permits full-length searches or searches limited to specific fields of the works; it is one of the most significant in the field of education research; and it is accessible to us (through our institution, scientific associations, etc.).

After applying these criteria, the following databases were chosen: Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). Although WoS and Scopus cover the most relevant works published in the field, they do not contain many significant works related to the Chinese context. For this reason, we included the CNKI database as one of the leading scientific databases available in China.

Search terms

We identified the main terms from the research questions, and the query was designed based on the identified terms and using logical operators for the search (Table 1). Zheng et al. (2021) suggested that research on teachers' digital competence accelerated in 2014 and became a mainstream study. Then, developing teachers' digital competence has become mainstream in Western countries until 2018. Hence, we selected articles from 2010 (January) to 2023 (March) in this study.

Table 1 Search terms
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Review process

Searching databases (identification phase): A total of 351 papers were retrieved (73 from WoS, 132 from Scopus, and 155 from CNKI limited to the China Social Science Citation Index). All raw results were collected in a repository (https://tinyurl.com/y7zbx25l).

In addition, bibliometric measurements (number of citations, journal source) and other factors were not accounted for in the analysis performed to determine this number of papers.

Figure 1 depicts the next step, namely, the selection of papers for the SLR, which was carried out as follows:

  1. 1.

    The spreadsheet (https://tinyurl.com/49buyuam) has already removed the duplicates across the databases.

  2. 2.

    The resultant 288 candidate papers were added to another sheet of the spreadsheet document (https://tinyurl.com/mv3wdycr), which were analyzed based on title, abstract, and keywords according to the IC or EC (screening phase). Therefore, 55% of the papers (159) were retrieved. In those cases where the title and abstract were insufficient to decide, the authors quickly assessed the entire content of the articles.

  3. 3.

    These 159 selected works from the previous phase were read in detail and analyzed following the research questions previously posed, which were subjected to a quality assessment checklist (see Table 2). Moreover, the information was collected in another spreadsheet (https://tinyurl.com/5dzwsyz5) (eligibility phase).

    In this third step of the review, the works were read, and their quality was evaluated using the formulated quality assessment checklist (Table 2). The answer for each one of the nine questions could be scored with 1 point if the answer was “Yes,” 0.5 points if “Partial,” and 0 if “No.” According to the checklist, each paper could receive between 0 and 9 points. The first quartile mark (Q1 = 5 points) was used as the cutoff score for a paper to be included. If a paper scored less than 5, it was omitted from the final list in order to avoid low-quality works according to the assessment checklist.

  4. 4.

    Papers selected after reading the full text (phase of final paper inclusion): 50 (17% of the total papers considered, 31% of the papers read). In this fourth step of the review, the articles were also read in full, and it was analyzed in a spreadsheet (https://tinyurl.com/mr3vefhx) and (https://tinyurl.com/2p8capzv) for responding to research questions.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Reporting steps and results of the review process as proposed in the PRISMA statement (Moher et al., 2009)

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Table 2 Quality assessment checklist
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Results and discussion

In the domain of research papers related to teachers' digital competence in China's context, 50 relevant studies have been identified that meet the rigorous applied screening criteria. Then these articles have been gathered, evaluated, and analyzed. This SLR provided evidence on research methods, influencing factors, and proposals for teachers' digital competence in the educational field and its terms used. Note that some specific intervention issues may have been reported in studies not covered in this review.

RQ 1. What are the main terms used to discuss teachers' use of technology for teaching and learning in the Chinese context?

As Ilomäki et al. (2011, p. 1) mentioned, “several terms have been used to describe the skills and competence of using digital technologies, such as ICT skills, technology skills, IT skills, 21st-century skills, information literacy, digital literacy, and digital skills.” Table 4 (available as additional material at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8041773) and Fig. 2 show the findings of the digital competence terms used in English to describe teachers’ digital competence in the context of China, which were based on the selected studies' abstract and keywords. The translation was conducted without machine translators; the primary author is a native Chinese speaker, and the co-authors ensured the consistency of the English translation. “Teachers' ICT competency” was the most frequently used term (12/50 papers, 24%), followed by “teachers' information literacy” (10/50 papers, 20%), “teachers' ICT teaching ability” (6/50, 12%), “teachers' IT application” (5/50, 10%), and “teachers’ digital competence” (3/50, 6%).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Terms used to describe the digital competence of teachers. ICT information, and communications technology; IT information technology; TPACK technological pedagogical content knowledge

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The results of this study showed that the terms “teachers' ICT competency,” “teachers' information literacy,” and “teachers' ICT teaching ability” have been widely used in Chinese education for a long time, with “information” serving as their central keyword. In practice, the term “teachers’ ICT competency” is derived from UNESCO (2011)'s ICT Competency Framework for Teachers. However, the term “teachers’ digital competence” has only been used gradually in the Chinese educational context over the past three years, as evidenced by Li et al. (2021), Yang et al. (2022), and Sang et al. (2023).

As China is currently in the digital transformation of the education, the impact of digital transformation of education on teachers' informatics competencies has been emphasized. For example, Wei and Zhu (2022) argued that teachers' professional digital competence is “a focus and innovation in the development of teachers' IT competencies based on the characteristics of the digital age and the norm of human–computer collaboration” (p. 16). In particular, Zheng et al. (2021) emphasized that, in contrast to studies on teachers' digital competence in other countries, research in China is still focused on digital literacy, information literacy, and IT application skills. Therefore, we infer that digital competence has emerged in Chinese education, but its limitations in learning and understanding have kept it from penetrating deeply into the educational field.

In contrast, mixed conceptual use regarding teachers' ability to use ICT was found in several selected studies (Liang et al., 2016; Ma et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2017). This was primarily reflected between the three concepts of teachers’ ICT competence, digital competence, information literacy, and TPACK. This finding corresponds to Wang et al. (2022), who declared that the definition of teachers' use of ICT for teaching and learning is not yet unified in Chinese academia. For example, Zhang et al. () used the TPACK level to determine the teachers’ ICT competency level and teachers' informatization teaching ability, respectively.

The mixed conceptual use related to the teachers' ability to use ICT in studies can be explained by Zheng et al. (2021). They indicated that the Educational Technology Competency Standards for Primary and Secondary School Teachers (Trial) (Ministry of Education of People´s Republic of China, 2014) developed at the Education Informatization 1.0 stage no longer meet the current development needs of society. China is currently in the 2.0 stage of Education Informatization. Teachers from different geographic areas in the East, middle, and west have seen a shift in their competency needs and levels to perform the teaching tasks of digital education due to differences in regional economic levels and Education Informatization development.

Under these conditions, we urge Chinese scholars to pay close attention to the interpretation of relevant terms for describing skills and competencies in using digital technologies in Education and to precisely translate and employ relevant non-Chinese terms. Furthermore, updating a theoretical framework in China is urgently needed to accommodate the current state of the Chinese education system and teachers' digital competence in the context of the digital age's development.

RQ 2. What are the main research purposes of the studies related to teachers' digital competence in China, and how about its related outcomes?

The main objectives of the studies

Figure 3 shows the six main research purposes of all selected studies. A total of 18 studies (36%) investigated the status quo of the digital competence level, 17 studies (34%) explored factors that influence teachers' digital competence, and eight studies (16%) explored issues related to teacher training in digital competence. Three studies focused on the issues in the technology-integrated classroom, and three studies developed validated instruments for measuring the teachers' digital competence of pre-service and in-service teachers. Only one study investigated the academic achievements of K-12 students whose teachers employed technology tools.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Research purposes of the studies

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The category of the digital competence level’s status quo

Firstly, five studies demonstrated the current informatization status of Chinese regions (Kuang et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2018; Rao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2019a, 2019b, 2019c; Zhou et al., 2016). The gap between the quality of education in the eastern and western regions of China is narrowing as the practice of informatization in education progresses gradually. For example, Rao et al. (2019) and Kuang et al. (2018) indicated that a significant difference no longer exists in classroom configuration in the East, Central, and Western regions. Moreover, the overall gap in the allocation of resources for the informatization of primary education in counties is narrowing.

However, previous research findings show that China's informatization of regional status between its eastern, central, and western regions is uneven, where the eastern and central regions are more developed than the western regions (Fan & Song, 2016; Zhao & Qian, 2018). This is similar to the findings of Zhang et al., (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) and Liu et al. (2018), indicating that the problem of uneven IT resources in basic education has not been completely resolved in the mountainous areas of western Yunnan, and that teachers in the central and western regions have lower levels of digital competence in terms of using ICT tools for teaching and learning purposes than those in the eastern regions.

Secondly, regarding the level of digital competence of teachers, Kong and Zhao (2017), Ma et al. (2019), Tang et al. (2019), and He et al. (2022) indicated that in-service teachers have a high level of awareness of the use of ICT in planning and preparing teaching sessions and in learning development, but they lack the high ability to use ICT tools for teaching and learning practice. According to Zhou et al. (2017), pre-service teachers are willing to change their teaching methods, but their willingness to optimize teaching and learning with ICT tools is weak, as is their capacity to integrate technology into the classroom. For higher education teachers, Yang and Hu (2019) and Liang et al. (2016) indicated that university teachers have a conscientiously high level of ICT awareness and responsibility. They have good theory and design of information-based teaching and learning, but their proficiency in using IT could be higher for designing and developing digital lessons and teaching resources.

The category of the influencing factors

Six articles used the technology acceptance model to explore the factors influencing teachers' acceptance or rejection of technology tools during their teaching and learning process (Li, Liao, et al., 2016a; Li, Wu, et al., 2016b; Li et al., 2017 ; Xu et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2016, 2018). For example, Li, Liao, et al. (2016a, 2016b), Zhang et al. (2016), and Zhang et al. (2018) indicated that factors, such as social influence, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease of use, have a significant and positive effect on teachers' behavior in using technology for teaching and learning. In addition, four studies indicated that student interaction feedback affects teachers' IT application behavior (Li, Wu, et al., 2016a, 2016b; Li et al., 2017; Xu & Hu, 2017; Y. Zhang et al., 2015).

The other studies in this category demonstrated that other factors significantly impact the teachers' digital competence, such as gender, age, years of teaching experience, teaching subjects, educational background, teachers' training experience, technological environment, and self-efficacy.

First, Zhang et al. (2016) indicated a significant difference between gender and teachers' digital competence levels, which is opposite to the findings of Li et al. (2017), Liang (2020), and Yang et al. (2022) studies. This contradictory finding from China was replicated in studies conducted in other countries. For example, Cabero Almenara (2017) indicated that sex as a sociodemographic factor has no impact on the perception of digital competence among Spanish in-service teachers. However, the opposite conclusion was found in another study by Guillén-Gámez et al. (2021).

Then, four studies (Li et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2018; Zhou et al., 2018) indicated that age, years of teaching experience, and hours of training accepted by teachers affected teachers' digital competence in teaching and learning. Regarding training hours, Zhou et al. (2018) demonstrated that only training exceeding 120 h significantly impacted teachers’ digital competence. In terms of age and years of teaching experience, Li et al. (2017), Yang et al. (2022), and He et al. (2022) demonstrated that in-service teachers who are younger and have fewer years of teaching experience possess higher levels of digital competence than others. In contrast to findings from other countries (HIinojo-Lucana et al., 2019; Pozo Sánchez et al., 2020), Lucas et al. (2021) demonstrated through multiple linear regression that the teaching experience as an influential factor loses its statistical significance. This disparity between the results of the two studies conducted in Spain and the two studies conducted in China may be attributable to differences in research methodology and the specificity of the investigated population samples.

Moreover, Yang et al. (2022) indicated that teachers with higher education degrees have a better level of digital competence in aspects of technical support learning and teaching, which aligns with the result of Zhao et al. (2021) for Chinese in-service teachers. However, this finding contradicts the result of Liang (2020), who indicated no significant differences in ICT application skills between teachers from different educational backgrounds. This difference between the results of the three Chinese studies may be due to the specificity of the surveyed populations, which focused on the Chinese provinces of Anhui, Gansu, and Shanghai.

The category related to teacher training issues

Among all eight studies pertaining to teachers' training, the online format conducted all these training programs. First, based on the technology acceptance model, Wang and Guo (2017) found that job performance, objective use, external support conditions, computer efficacy, and social needs influence teachers' behavioral intentions to use Web-based workshops.

Second, two studies (Huang et al., 2016; Li & Huang, 2018) investigated teachers' online discussions in workshops; both indicated that participants could not identify and analyze the relevance of issues, and that most discussions could have been more effective. In this case, Li and Huang (2018) suggested that the workshop facilitator needs to take specific measures to guide the online discussion process at different stages of the workshop. Then, four studies on teacher training effectiveness were conducted (Huang et al., 2021). Meanwhile, using an annual comparative study, ) showed that the national training program impacted the ICT competency of teachers in each school section and region. Wu et al. (2016) indicated that after Web 2.0-based training for teachers’ educational technology skills, the majority of teachers have improved educational technology awareness and responsibility, knowledge, and skills, teaching design, implementation and evaluation, and innovative use of educational technology. Zhang et al., (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) reported that using mind mapping in teacher training facilitates learners' content mastery, and that after training, learners prefer content on practical teaching software. In addition, Xia et al. (2017) investigated students' achievement by exploring the teachers' effectiveness of technology tools.

The category of issues in the technology-integrated classroom

Yao et al. (2019) and Zhang et al., (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) investigated the factors that influence the disconnection problem between learning and using in teachers' technology-integrated teaching. However, Mu et al. (2019) intend to develop teachers' practical knowledge of the use of technology through the perspective of one excellent lecture.

On the other side, three articles were related to forming validated instruments (Li et al., 2019; Wei et al., 2021; Yan et al., 2018), in which Yan et al. (2018) and Li et al. (2019) formatted instruments for the self-measurement of pre-service teachers' digital competence, and Wei et al. (2021) formatted a model for evaluating in-service teachers.

RQ 3. What are the main characteristics of research methods used for the selected studies?

Concerning the main characteristics of the research methods, we investigated the population, and sample, study regions, methodology, data collection method, and instruments.

Figure 4 shows that the selected papers have studied the main population. In particular, 40/50 papers (80%) studied the in-service teachers, in which three studies also investigated the schoolmasters' digital competence. Moreover, 7/50 papers (14%) studied the pre-service teachers. Furthermore, three studies investigated the digital competence of higher education teachers.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Study sample

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Meanwhile, Table 3 shows the sample size of the 50 selected studies. Eleven studies (22%) have a small sample size with 1–200 participants, followed by six studies with a sample size of 501–1,000, nine studies (18%) with 1001–2000 participants (medium sample), and eight studies (16%) with more than 5000 participants (large sample).

Table 3 Sample size (Number)
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Regarding the Chinese region where the study was conducted, 33 articles (66%) did not report or unclearly reported their studying region, and the remaining 17 articles mentioned that their study was carried out in different regions of China. Figure 5 shows the distribution of the study provinces, with most studies conducted in eastern and southern China and fewer in the western and northern regions.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Distribution of study provinces

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Figure 6 shows the type of methodology, in which quantitative research (34/50 papers, 68%) is the most used methodology, followed by mixed methods (10/50 papers, 20%) and qualitative approaches (6/50 papers, 12%).

Fig. 6
figure 6

Type of the methodology

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Figure 7 shows the main findings on the design validation provided by these papers, including 47 (94%) studies focused on the diagnostic evaluation of the digital competence level with non-experimental design, two studies focused on the fundamental intention of design and/or validation of a questionnaire, and only one study used quasi-experimental research design.

Fig. 7
figure 7

The design validation

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Regarding the methods used for collecting data, questionnaires, interviews, observation, and surveys are the main methods used. Among these 50 studies, 31 used questionnaires, the most common instrument for collecting data, followed by questionnaires and interviews (9 papers, 18%).

For the instrument used, Fig. 8 shows that most of the selected works have no reference to validating the instruments used (n = 29). On the contrary, 11 studies used an exploratory factor analysis and five used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to validate the instruments.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Validation of the instrument used in the study

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RQ 4. What are the most prominent proposals to improve the digital competence of Chinese teachers? Moreover, which of these proposals have been tested on humans?

Among all the 50 selected articles (as shown in https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8191882), 43 studies provided suggestions for enhancing the digital competence of pre-service and in-service teachers, with 35 studies (70%) offering theoretical suggestions and 9 studies (18%) offering practical suggestions. Establishing a positive ICT environment, conducting teacher training (20 of 34 articles), and developing effective pedagogical strategies are the three primary aspects of the authors' proposals. Three articles (Huang et al., 2021; Luo et al., 2021a, 2021b; Zhang et al., 2019a, 2019b, 2019c) examined the feasibility of conducting teacher training with in-service teachers.

Establishing a good atmosphere for ICT

The studies suggest fostering a positive ICT environment in which the government and schools are viewed as essential supporters who can work to nurture a positive ICT culture. According to eight studies, the government should provide support in terms of policy protection, resource allocation, and mechanism development for IT in primary education (Chen & Lu, 2020; Li, Liao, et al., 2016a, 2016b; Liang et al., 2016; Rao et al., 2019; Tang et al., 2019; Wang & Ren, 2020; Xu et al., 2020; Zhou et al., 2016). For example, Tang et al. (2019) indicated that the government must upgrade the support service system in all aspects and establish a continuous guarantee mechanism for technology, personnel, and materials. In particular, Li, Liao, et al. () noted that the transition of China's education IT from hardware to software development should be accelerated.

From the school part, we already know that a good ICT technology teaching atmosphere can effectively stimulate teachers’ willingness to use IT in teaching (Zhang et al., 2018). Therefore, seven articles indicate that schools should create a good ICT culture (Huang et al., 2016, 2021; Kong & Zhao, 2017; Li et al., 2017; Xu & Hu, 2017; Yao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2018). For example, Yao et al. (2019) indicated that schools should encourage teachers to engage in practice-based and collaborative teaching and research, carry out projects, such as lesson studies on the use of new technologies in classroom teaching in various subjects, use teamwork to conduct practical reflections, and strengthen the integration of technology and subject teaching. Zhang et al. (2018) demonstrated that creating a good climate requires reasonable incentives and an evaluation system to match. Moreover, developing the headmaster’s leadership role in IT is crucial. Moreover, apart from the leading role of the government in planning and guiding policies for local education informatics and the role of schools in conducting the governmental policies, Wang and Ren (2020) suggested that universities and research institutes should utilize their intellectual strength to conduct theoretical and technological research. Enterprises play an important role in the market by transforming theoretical and technological advances into market-ready products and operational services.

Furthermore, the problem of strengthening the relevance of digital resources for teaching and learning was mentioned in two studies (Kuang et al., 2018; Zhou et al., 2018). For example, Kuang et al. (2018) suggested promoting the in-depth development of video resources and constructing a thematic resource library by developing thematic resources for implementing information-based teaching software and hardware platforms. For example, the authors suggested using the "excellent lesson" example to conduct distance learning practice with teachers from less developed areas. Meanwhile, Zhou et al. (2018) suggested increasing the number of digital teaching resources suitable for teaching in the lower grades with vivid and interesting images. They also proposed that digital teaching resources for science subjects, such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, should be particularly strengthened.

Conducting teacher training

The three most important aspects of post-service training were its approach, training content, and pedagogical strategies. Regarding the training approach, online training is the primary way to improve the digital competence of in-service teachers; for example, Li et al. (2016a, 2016b) and Zhang et al., (2019a, 2019b, 2019c) recommended centralized training in an online format. Regarding the training content, Li et al. (2018) and Xu and Hu (2017) recommended the development of comprehensive training course standards and the construction of a highly adaptable "precision" training model to advance the training content system. Moreover, the training content should be constantly updated by increasing the proportion of practical technology, such as teaching app applications, audio and video creation, and editing. In addition, teachers' skills in finding and classifying materials should be improved to keep up with the development of technology and make teachers feel effective (Yang & Hu, 2019). Due to the pedagogical strategies for in-service teachers' training, first of all, improving teachers’ motivation and thinking about using technology for learning and teaching in post-service training must be enhanced (Li et al., 2017; Yang & Hu, 2019). Then, to explore more dynamic teacher professional development activities and provide more hands-on learning opportunities for teachers, five studies (Li, Liao, et al., ) suggested that training should focus on the characteristics of different categories and be grouped according to the age, subject category, and the level of education of teachers, so that each training session is conducted from a different perspective. Lastly, Wu et al. (2016) and Tang et al. (2019) suggested establishing an evaluation system in the teacher training process, such as establishing a two-way evaluation of subject and object, combining quantitative and qualitative evaluations to optimize the evaluation criteria, and optimizing the input and output of teachers' use of ICT through performance evaluation.

Regarding digital competence education for pre-service teachers, Zhou et al. (2017) demonstrated a lack of a systematic curriculum system and organized support means (hardware and software resources) for the IT application practice, particularly in the lack of systematic support platform and high-quality case resources generally. This led to low awareness of professional development and a low willingness to apply technology to optimize teaching, design, and organize applications ability. In this case, our study found three studies proposing recommendations for pre-service training (Li et al., 2019; Mu et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2017). They thought universities or teacher training institutions needed to build a systematic curriculum system to enhance the digital competence of pre-service teachers. In terms of teaching contents, Mu et al. (2019) suggested teaching and evaluating theoretical and introductory courses in education and psychology to improve the effectiveness of theoretical learning.

However, the authors of two studies recommended strengthening pre-service teachers' individual and community practice (Mu et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2017). Mu et al. (2019) and Li et al. (2019) particularly highlighted the need for pre-service teachers to apply what they have learned in practice and promote the integration of theory and practice by building a digital competence evaluation system. However, Zhou et al. (2017) suggested building a practice support platform and quality case resources to effectively link information-based teaching theory and practice by developing quality case resources for information-based teaching based on the TPACK framework and establishing a tripartite cooperation mechanism between teacher training universities, local governments, and primary, and secondary schools to promote collaborative development and innovation among pre-service teachers. Furthermore, Li et al. (2019) suggested promoting the deep integration of technology and education teaching by constructing an IT environment.

Making good pedagogical strategies

According to Kelentrić et al. (2017), teachers’ digital competence encompasses not only the ability to use ICT to improve the learning environment, but also the development of students' abilities to identify credible information, quote sources, protect their intellectual property, apply ethical values and attitudes in communications and interactions, produce their own digital resources, and develop a reflective relationship regarding their own and others' actions, cultural differences, values, and rights. The pedagogical strategy in this study refers to some methods for integrating ICT into teachers' teaching and learning processes.

Among the five studies mentioned the pedagogical strategies (Kuang et al., 2018; Li et al., 2018; Liang, 2020; Xia et al., 2017; Yang & Hu, 2019), teachers' teaching design, learning design, and use of ICT tools are three main pedagogical strategies. For example, Xia et al. (2017) recommended improving teachers' teaching and learning design using ICT tools, which could improve the effectiveness of ICT tools in teaching and learning. Li et al. (2018) demonstrated that technology must be incorporated into teaching and learning because teachers must be familiar with technology-based independent learning design, communication and assessment, and learning behavior analysis. Xia et al. (2017) also suggested changing the structure of teaching based on technological tools, which is to transform the "teacher-centered" teaching structure into one that is “student-centered,” giving full play to the teacher's leading role and highlighting the subjectivity of the students. Besides, the education of an information ethic cannot be ignored (Yang & Hu, 2019). Taking intellectual property literacy as an example, society's awareness, including teachers' creation, use, protection, and legal management of intellectual property, still needs to improve.

Conclusion

This paper uses the SLR technique to provide an overview of the efforts and obstacles related to teachers' digital competence in China. Similarities exist between the approaches analyzed in this review and previous reviews conducted in China. However, this review highlighted the development of in-service teachers' digital competence in primary and secondary schools and focused on studies on pre-service teachers' digital competence and enhancing pre-service. Teachers' digital competence level is a fundamental way to solve their digital competence in future.

This research obtains four main findings: (1). The notion of digital competence has not yet permeated China’s educational system. “Teachers’ ICT competency” and “teachers’ information literacy” are the principal terms used to describe teachers' digital competence. (2). Current research mainly focused on three aspects: teachers’ digital competence status quo, the influencing factors of teachers’ use of ICT for teaching and learning, and teacher training. Regarding teachers' digital competence status, the digital environment (hardware environment, hardware and software equipment, and independent campus network) varies among eastern, middle, and western China. So far, there is a need for more digital competence in these three areas. Regarding teachers’ use of ICT for learning and teaching, the value of digital teaching facilities and teaching resources must be recognized due to teachers’ need for advanced digital competence. Therefore, teacher training has become an emerging research topic in China. (3). The non-experimental study for the in-service teacher population is the leading research direction related to teachers' digital competence in China. (4). Establishing a good ICT environment, conducting teacher training, and employing effective pedagogical strategies are three main proposals for improving teachers' digital competence in China. In terms of establishing a good ICT atmosphere, Chinese researchers expect that the government and schools will transform the digital environment. Concerning teacher training development, most research focuses on ICT training for in-service teachers, and the online format is regarded as the only viable training method in the Chinese context. Meanwhile, concerning the employed pedagogical strategies, more research is required to investigate how to improve the pedagogical use of ICT for teaching and learning by both pre-service and in-service teachers. Moreover, a few proposals mentioned have been tested. This research was limited by focusing only on the literature about Chinese teachers’ digital competence in the last ten years. Consequently, this review might have excluded relevant articles published before 2010 and relevant books or conference papers. We only consider the Chinese Social Science Citation Index databases incompatible with other citation indices to ensure the quality content.