In the wake of Bologna there has been an increasing focus on practical placement during university-led teacher training in Germany. This phases and empirical theses necessitate or allow students to realise their own research projects. Therefore, students need knowledge in methodology and in research practice. When it comes to teaching qualitative research methods, digitalisation provides a chance to address structural gaps in university-led teacher training but also to enable heterogeneous student groups to self-organise their learning processes: How can digital media and learning management platforms be used effectively?

Research-based learning (RBL) is proving itself as a new learning principle in university-led teacher training. This didactic concept initiates learning processes through students' empirical research about e.g. teaching practice or student’s experiences. Its application aims at developing a willingness and ability to self-reflect as well as the development of new insights into students’ future profession (Fichten 2010). Subjective and everyday theories about school, teaching and professional conduct are to be re-examined through a disassociated and reflective approach. To achieve this, students work closely on data from surveys, interviews, empirical observations and documents, while the focus always remains on their learning processes (Weyland/Wittmann 2010). The implementation of research-based standards ensures the quality of these learning processes. A central requirement is that students are conscious of the inherent moments of reflexivity in research processes and are willing to take scientific knowledge as points of reference (Fichten 2010). In RBL science should be experienced as a social process (Huber 2009), accompanied by staff-based support and peer-level exchange.

In the scientific discourse about qualitative research, the enquiry of qualitative data in textual form, as well as the analysis and interpretation of materials is identified as a social process (Riemann 2005, 2011). The collaborative interpretation by researchers in a collective process is described as an essential feature of qualitative research (Oevermann et. al. 1980; Schütze 2005) – Fichten and Dreier (2003) speak of the ‘triangulation of subjectivity’. The practice of qualitative research workshops is established in many research centres. It is rooted in discussions by qualitative researchers on Grounded Theory, as practiced by Anselm Strauss in San Francisco in the 1970s (Riemann 2005). Simultaneously, the communicative process of data interpretation is considered a quality feature of qualitative research (Allert et. al. 2014; Steinke 2004). Lincoln and Guba (1985) summarise this process as ‘peer de-briefing’.

Other scholars embed the acquisition of research methodical skills, as a social praxis within a ‘social arrangement’ (Schütze 2005). In such research workshops, participants engage in a confrontation with qualitative-empiric research materials. As they become active in researching, they also support and correct each other reciprocally (ibid., 235). Research workshops are therefore credited for their relation in learning and practice of methods (Przyborski/Wohlrab-Sahr 2014). Reflexivity is considered an essential characteristic as well as a quality feature of qualitative research. It is acquired through participating in research practice. Within a collective and interactive setting rules, methods and events of self-reflection facilitate the acquisition of a self-reflective attitude (Dausien 2007; Alheit 2005). Trust and professionalism are further central moments connected with teaching and learning of qualitative methods. Instead of objectivity, it focuses on reflexion and argumentation. Within the scientific community researchers learn to deal with uncertainties in order to build trust in their individual research skills. After all, students as researchers, as part of a community of practice, are doing research in a collective way (Dausien 2007).

Thus, RBL and qualitative research have relevant structural similarities. Beside reflexivity, collective and, at the same time autonomous, learning process, establishes an important starting point for the development of E-Learning services.

The proposed poster presents the work of the project “MethodLab Qualitative Research” at the University Duisburg-Essen (Germany). Focusing on qualitative research methods, the project develops online-based courses as well as online research workshops, where students can learn and practice qualitative research and its methods. It presents the concept of research-based learning (RBL) as a didactic principle in teacher training, and summarises the latest research on learning qualitative methods. From this, conceptual requirements for online research workshops will be derived. In a first part the proposed poster discusses the relation between and the meaning of research and learning in RBL in university-led teacher training. RBL usually takes place during practical placements. Therefore, it is part of future teachers’ professional development, who gain first teaching experiences and learn to deal with school matters, lessons and teaching in a research-based self-reflective way. In RBL not only research standards are relevant to initiate learning processes during research activities, but also methodical knowledge. The teaching of research methods is, unfortunately, not an official part of the curriculum in teacher training at most German universities. When it comes to learning qualitative research methods, adequate learning settings are needed to support lecturers and students alike. These settings for learning can traditionally be found in research workshops. In a second part the poster summarises the current debate on learning qualitative research methods. Based on specific and highly differentiated developments of qualitative research methods, consisting of various distinctive schools of particular qualitative methodologies in the German scientific discourse, the concept of research workshops is introduced. The third and central part of the poster contains conceptual drafts for the development of online-based research groups: Students have to learn qualitative research methods in settings which qualify them for autonomous research and learning. Settings should simultaneously require cooperation and communication. Furthermore, researching school and lessons in this framework should support the development of self-reflective competences. We follow the argument, that there is a potential in the tradition of research groups and modern social networks for online research groups: Therefore lecturers become moderators and the focus is on students themselves. Interactive applications offer opportunities to create need-based learning arrangements through communication, sociality and self-organized utilization. However, this requires smaller, interactive arrangements among peers as well as between students and lecturers. Through digitalization of academic teaching, learning of research methods can be separated from classic but inappropriate settings of larger courses.

From the perspective of educational science, we raise the following questions regarding the transformation of offline to online acquisition of research skills: How can traditionally face-to-face interactions by research groups with specific discursive dynamics, be transferred to online settings with written communication unbound by a common time and place? How can students be engaged in self-organised continuous participation? How can sociality emerge and persist online – especially in formal learning settings? How can theoretical generalisations be abstracted from interpretations and analysis? What kinds of practises and learning activities support these kinds of transformation and learning processes? Our main objective is to provide collective learning spaces for research groups which enable students to train self-reflection in social contexts. The conceptual development of web-based communication platforms, where students engage in collective interpretation and give mutual advice, provides them with such spaces. In digital interpretation groups students can work collectively on their research processes, literature, topics and methods – independent of class sessions. On the one hand, they practise participation in scientific discourses; on the other hand, they explore their own topics in cooperation. Hence, research projects of some students become learning opportunities for others. Our goal is to provide students, in teacher training, opportunities to develop an inquisitive and research-oriented mind-set through the acquisition and application of research methods. Following a constructivist approach to media-based learning (Kerres 2013), students work on our platforms in an explorative manner and as part of an online scientific community – or at least a learning community.

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