Parental Counselling is a central task of teachers in everyday school life (Hertel, 2009; Schnebel, 2013) and listed in the COACTIV model as one aspect of teachers’ professional competence (Baumert & Kunter, 2011). Classroom-based training programs focusing on teachers’ counselling skills have been evaluated successfully (Hertel et al., 2014; Gerich et al., 2012). Nowadays, due to digitalization web-based trainings are becoming increasingly important in educational settings (Issing & Klimsa, 2009). This study examines the effectiveness of a web-based training for parental counselling in comparison to a classroom-based format in early teacher education. Research questions (RQ1) How do students evaluate the web-based training? (RQ2) What subjective competence gain do students report? (RQ3) Are there differences in the effectiveness of the training formats? Method The sample consisted of N = 143 students (age: M=24.85; 73,4% female; teacher education track: n=123; educational sciences track: n=20). They enrolled themselves in a course on counselling competence, and were randomly assigned to a web-based training (n=120) or classroom-based format (n=23). The analyses comprise descriptive analyses, qualitative analyses of student’s feedback, t-Test and MANOVA with repeated measures. No significant pre-test differences between the groups were found. Results The results suggest a high level of acceptance of the web-based training (RQ1). Students especially appreciated the temporal and spatial flexibility, content design and support. 60% of the students prefer a web-based training format. With regard to RQ2 the statistics show that 73.3% (M=3.85, SD=0.72) of the students in the web-based format and 43.4% (M=3.35, SD=0.83) of the students in the classroom-based format reported a high to very high learning increase. The web-based training group reported a statistically significantly higher learning increase (t(142)=2.99, p=.011). The MANOVA (RQ3) showed a statistically significant multivariate main effect for the factor time (Wilks λ=.83, F(139)=9.7, p<.001). There was a significant increase in personal resources and interpersonal relationship (F(1,141)=21.78, p<.001, d=0.78), process structuring (F(1,141)=22.56, p<.001, d=0.8), and problem-solving and coping-skills (F(1,141)=5.8, p=.017, d=0.4) in both groups. No statistically significant interaction effect of time x treatment (Wilks λ=.98, F(139)=.76, p=.52) was found. Discussion These first results indicate that web-based and class-based formats are equally effective in fostering counselling competences in early teacher education. However, the presented analyses are based on self-reports. Analyses of simulated parent-teacher-talks are still pending and will add to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the web-based format. Implications for teacher education will be discussed.

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