Diagnostic cases in pre-service teacher education: effects of text characteristics and empathy on text-based cognitive models

Abstract

In teacher education, case-based learning is an efficient method to foster pre-service teachers' diagnostic competence. To adaptively utilize text-based cases, knowledge about the effect of text characteristics is needed, but still scarce. The present study focuses on the effects of two text characteristicstext style and text subjectand on the effect of empathy on the accuracy of case-based cognitive models. This was examined with an experimental design, in which 391 pre-service teachers read a case in either psycho-narrative or externally focalized style (text style) about test anxiety or dyscalculia (text subject). Afterwards, state-empathy was measured by self-report and cognitive models were assessed with a recognition and verification test. Regression analyses showed no main effects of text characteristics, but moderation effects for text style and affective state-empathy. Implications are drawn for adaptively designing textbased cases and for possible mechanisms of how empathy is involved in diagnostic judgement formation.