Fostering diagnostic competence in mathematics teacher education with a specific focus on teachers’ diagnostic thinking

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Andreas Eichler
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 559778060

The importance of teachers’ diagnostic competence for processes of teaching and learning is widely recognised. Diagnostic competence can be seen as a prerequisite for adaptive teaching and is therefore an essential part of teaching professionalism because understanding students’ thinking and learning processes is essential for planning lessons and providing individual support. It can be assumed that diagnostic competence is a factor in students’ learning success. Diagnostic competence has often been measured as judgement accuracy. However, in this research study, we focus on primary school teachers’ ability to understand students’ thinking and learning processes as a part of diagnostic competence, which is believed to be a more authentic professional ability of teachers than judgement accuracy. Research studies have found that diagnostic competence could and should be improved through specific training from the beginning of teacher education programmes. Although there are several research approaches concerning the development of teachers’ diagnostic competence, open questions remain with regard to an optimal focus of training on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) or pedagogical knowledge (PK). Moreover, it is not been investigated whether training concerning diagnostic competence is effective irrespective of the syllabus in question in a teacher education programme, or how cognitive and affective person characteristics impact on the development of diagnostic competence. For this reason, this project aims at an experimental comparison of three different training concepts: the fostering of PK and PCK individually and, as a promising new approach, the fostering of both aspects in an integrated manner (PCK and PK). We assume integrated training to be more effective and more sustainable than training that focuses solely on PCK or PK. The effectiveness of the three training approaches will be compared against a control group. The study follows a pre-post follow-up design. As a topic, we chose understanding of basic arithmetic, as this topic is highly relevant for primary school teachers. We assume the fostering of diagnostic competence to be independent from the teacher education system and, thus, from the knowledge that the teachers acquired before specific diagnostic competence training, which will be tested by conducting two parallel studies (one in Switzerland and one in Germany). The project focuses on one crucial aspect of diagnostic competence, the ability to recognise (in)correct or (in)complete task solutions as the basis for building hypotheses about students understanding. Another aim is to investigate factors that affect the acquisition of diagnostic competence (motivational aspects, beliefs and content knowledge). The results will inform research on diagnostic competence and, based on the results, we expect useful implications for pre-service and in-service teacher education with regard to the fostering of diagnostic competence.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Kathleen Philipp