Fostering pre-service teachers’ media education competence: a pedagogical concept for initial teacher education

Current advancements in the media landscape have a significant impact on adolescents’ development. Implementing media education in initial teacher education programs is essential to promote pre-service teachers’ competence to foster their future students’ media competence. In this study, we assess whether the objectives of a theory- and practice-based pedagogical concept designed to promote pre-service teachers’ media education competence have been achieved. This study represents the second iteration of a design-based research project, in which the initial version of the pedagogical concept was further developed and implemented at a German university. In an empirical evaluation conducted at pre- and post-intervention measurement points, a convenience sample of 38 pre-service teachers completed competence-based tasks. Responses were analyzed to identify differences in the development of media education competence based on the consideration of competence standards. Two consecutive phases of analysis were applied, including a qualitative content analysis followed by a Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The findings indicate that participants demonstrated significant improvements in referring to empirical findings on adolescents’ media use, discussing theoretical approaches to media education, evaluating these approaches and examples for media education activities from different perspectives, and developing media education lesson designs. Based on these results, implications are outlined for further research on theory- and practice-based pedagogical concepts aimed at enhancing the media education competence of pre-service teachers in initial teacher education.