Abstract:

Teacher education increasingly faces the challenge of preparing future teachers to design technology-enhanced learning (TEL) environments that foster students’ self-regulated learning and meaningful cognitive engagement. As digital technologies become integral to educational practice, teachers need not only technical skills but also pedagogical knowledge about how technology can support students’ active participation, reflection, and regulation of their own learning processes. Consequently, teacher education programs must provide structured opportunities for pre-service teachers to develop pedagogical digital competence and to learn how to intentionally integrate technology in ways that promote deeper learning.

This study evaluates a 14-week course-embedded training for pre-service teachers grounded in the European DigCompEdu framework, self-regulated learning theory, and the ICAP framework (Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive), which conceptualizes levels of cognitive engagement in learning activities. The training aimed to support participants in designing TEL learning activities that encourage students to regulate their learning and engage actively with digital tasks. To explore how different instructional approaches influence these outcomes, the training was implemented in two variants: knowledge instruction only (KI) and knowledge instruction combined with situated learning elements (KI+SL). The latter included practice-oriented components such as authentic design tasks, collaborative reflection, and opportunities to apply theoretical principles to concrete lesson planning.

Using a pre–post design (n = 30), we assessed perceived pedagogical digital competence, self-regulated learning self-efficacy, expectancy–value–cost beliefs regarding the use of TEL, adoption intentions, and ICAP-oriented engagement orientations as proximal indicators of transfer to TEL lesson planning. Participants reported substantial gains in digital competence (d = 0.87) and self-regulated learning self-efficacy (d = 0.66), alongside increased adoption intentions (d = 0.40) and stronger orientations toward active and constructive forms of cognitive engagement (d = 0.47). These results suggest that theory-based TEL design training embedded within teacher education can meaningfully strengthen competencies required for pedagogically meaningful technology integration.

To examine whether situated learning elements provide added value beyond knowledge instruction, outcomes were compared between the KI and KI+SL conditions (n = 16 and 17, respectively). Nonparametric tests showed no statistically significant between-group differences, although small-to-medium trends favored the KI+SL condition on several outcomes. Overall, the findings suggest that theory-based TEL design training can strengthen pre-service teachers’ capacity to design learning activities that intentionally support self-regulated learning and cognitively engaging student participation. At the same time, the results highlight the need for larger samples and behavioral transfer measures to better capture how these competencies translate into authentic classroom practice and lesson planning.

Keywords:

Self-regulated learning, pre-service teachers, training, ICAP, DigCompEdu.