Swiss population overestimates own computer skills
When it comes to their basic computer skills, Swiss people consistently overestimate their abilities. This is confirmed by a representative study conducted by ECDL Switzerland.
In addition to overestimating their own abilities, the level of performance is also poor: in the practical test, participants achieve an average of less than half the possible points.
Overall, the Swiss population rates their skills across all computer applications surveyed much higher than the practical test confirms. While a large majority overestimated their skills, only a few respondents underestimated their performance. Respondents rated themselves most realistically when using Word, achieving a total of two thirds of the previously assessed performance points in the test. The greatest overestimation can be seen in the use of Excel: Overall, the respondents only achieved just under half of their previously assessed performance. These are the findings of the representative study conducted by ECDL Switzerland AG, which implements the internationally recognized certificate for PC users, the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence), in Switzerland.
Unrealistic self-assessment to a high degree
An assessment on a scale from "very good" to "very poor" shows the extent of the overestimation: while 67% of test participants rate themselves as "very good/good", only 31% achieve a corresponding test result. Meanwhile, 6 percent rate their skills as "very poor/poor" in advance, although in practice a full 40 percent perform poorly to very poorly (Figure 1).
Best results when using the Internet and e-mails
If only the results of the practical test are analyzed, the participants in the ECDL study only solved 46.1% of all tasks correctly across all tested applications. This result shows that the population in this country has a low level of performance in the area of basic computer applications - despite very good PC equipment and intensive use. The best results can be seen in Internet use and dealing with e-mails (average test result 50.7%). In file management, 47.5 percent and in the use of Word 47.3% were achieved. Excel comes a distant last with a total of just 34.1%. Digital natives (15 to 25-year-olds) achieved significantly better test results in all four areas than the total of all test subjects (15 to 64-year-olds) and with an overall result of 59.6%, they are 13.5 percentage points above the Swiss average (Figure 2).
Further results and graphics on the study at Ecdl.ch/study
