Promoting diagnostic reasoning in teacher education: the role of case format and perceived authenticity

Teachers routinely observe and interpret student behavior to make judgements about whether and how to support their students’ learning. Simulated cases can help pre-service teachers to gain this skill of diagnostic reasoning. With 118 pre-service teachers, we tested whether participants rate simulated cases presented in a serial-cue case format as more authentic and become more involved with the materials compared to cases presented in a whole case format. We further investigated whether participants with varying prior conceptual knowledge (what are symptoms of ADHD and dyslexia) gain more strategic knowledge (how to detect ADHD and dyslexia) with a serial-cue versus whole case format. We found that the case format did not impact authenticity ratings but that learners reported higher involvement in the serial-cue case format condition. Bayes factors provide moderate evidence for the absence of a case format effect on strategic knowledge and strong evidence for the absence of an interaction of case format and prior knowledge. We recommend using serial-cue case formats in simulations as they are a more authentic representation of the diagnostic reasoning process and cognitively involve learners. We call for replications to gather more evidence for the impact of case format on knowledge acquisition. We suggest a further inquiry into the relationship of case format, involvement, and authenticity but think that a productive way forward for designing authentic simulations is attention to aspects that make serial-cue cases effective for diverse learners. For example, adaptive feedback or targeted practice of specific parts of diagnostic reasoning such as weighing evidence.