Exploring pre-service teachers’ criteria for evaluating collaboratively designed online tasks

Abstract This study examines the criteria that pre-service teachers (PSTs) use to evaluate collaboratively designed technology-mediated interaction tasks. The paper presents PSTs’ reflections on tasks as part of a telecollaborative task design seminar conducted within the ERASMUS+ project DIGITASK4IC. During the seminar, PSTs from three universities collaborated using the DIGITASK Web App to create interaction tasks for EFL learners. The study utilizes two datasets: transcribed recordings of group discussions and written end-of-term reports. Qualitative content analysis was employed to investigate specific criteria that PSTs rely on when evaluating technology-mediated tasks. The results suggest that PSTs evaluate tasks based on criteria related to digital tools, task instructions, outcome, and interaction that only partially overlap with task criteria in theoretical models.