Assessing students on-the-fly is an important but challenging task for teachers. In initial teacher education, a call has been made to better prepare pre-service teachers for this complex task. Advances in technology allow this training to be done through authentic learning environments, such as video-based simulations. To understand the learning process in such simulations, it is necessary to determine how cognitive and motivational learner characteristics influence situative learning experiences, such as the perception of authenticity, cognitive load, and situational motivation, during the simulation and how they affect aspects of performance. In the present study, N = 150 pre-service teachers from German universities voluntarily participated in a validated online video-based simulation targeting on-the-fly student assessments. We identified three profiles of learner characteristics: one with above average knowledge, one with above average motivational-affective traits, and one with below average knowledge and motivational-affective traits. These profiles do not differ in the perception of the authenticity of the simulation. Furthermore, the results indicate that the profiled learners navigate differently through the simulation. The knowledgeable learners tended to outperform learners of the other two profiles by using more learning time for the assessment process, also resulting in higher judgment accuracy. The study highlights how learner characteristics and processes interact, which helps to better understand individual learning processes in simulations. Thus, the findings may be used as a basis for future simulation research with a focus on adaptive and individual support.
An adequate on-the-fly assessment of relevant learner characteristics is an essential professional ability for effective teaching. However, this task is challenging, particularly for teacher students, as they often struggle in applying conceptual knowledge and lack perception of personal value and utility of study contents. Video-based simulations enable the acquisition of practice-oriented abilities for student assessment in initial teacher education. Implementing additional scaffolding in simulations can increase learning gains. The present study examines whether a utility value intervention and conceptual knowledge prompts can effectively support the assessment of relevant learner characteristics and how such effects are influenced by success expectancy. The study participants were N = 108 pre-service teachers, who completed a validated video-based simulation. They were randomly assigned to both interventions (utility value intervention, conceptual prompts) in a 2 × 2 design. The results showed that conceptual prompts improved judgment accuracy effectively. The utility value intervention yielded only descriptive improvements that require further investigations. The combination of both interventions was least effective. Furthermore, the results suggest that participants with low success expectancy benefited more from conceptual prompts. These results suggest that conceptual knowledge prompts and tentatively also utility value interventions can be used as effective scaffolds in simulations in the context of assessment skills. However, they also tentatively suggest that more processing and reflection time might be required for the combined scaffold to be effective. In addition, the differential effectiveness of both scaffolds emphasizes that an adaptation of scaffolds based on, for example, success expectancy can support additional learning gains.
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