Due to the Corona pandemic, adult education is currently confronted with many changes to which it must respond in order to continue to fulfil its educational mandate. Ensuring the education of adults under pandemic conditions challenges the adult education sector to implement offers digitally and also digitise business processes at the levels of administration and communication. Although digitalisation was already a concern for adult education before the Corona pandemic (e. g. Sgier et al. 2018; Christ et al. 2020), the topic is experiencing enormous acceleration as a result, which is why some authors speak of a “forced digitalisation” for adult education practice (cf. Käpplinger & Lichte 2020, p. 778). Adult educators are challenged to shape the digital transformation at all levels of action (offer design, educational organisation, program planning, political and strategic level) (cf. Kerres & Buntins 2020, p. 15), for which they need media-pedagogical competences (Schmidt-Hertha et al. 2017). Recent studies on media-pedagogical competences in adult education have shown that there is a need for formal media-educational initial, further and continuing training (e. g. Rohs & Bolten 2020). Media-pedagogical professionalisation currently represents an orientation vacuum in adult education, as the requirements for (media-educational) knowledge and the necessary competences have remained largely vague (cf. Bolten-Bühler 2021, p. 20). This raises the question of how this vacuum of orientation can be constructively addressed in order to enable adult educators to shape the digital transformation in a successful and sustainable way. It is argued that a basic media education as part of the academic professionalism development can contribute to this.

Basic media education is understood as the systematic, reflexive academic examination of media education content and practice-related issues, which ensures the development of media-educational orientation knowledge and enables students to act in a holistic, media pedagogical-professional manner. Systematic media education comprises various dimensions: a) the media-didactic dimension as a creative-designing element; 2) the dimension of “Medienbildung”, which includes the knowledge of educational potentials of media in adult education; 3) the dimension of media socialisation as an awareness of the mediatised life worlds of adults and the significance of media in adulthood; 4) the dimension of media-pedagogical organisational development as empowerment to actively shape framework conditions for media-pedagogical professional action in adult education; 5) the dimension of one's own media competence as basic competence for media-pedagogical professional action in adult education (cf. Bellinger 2018, p. 130 f.). The basic media education presented here is preceded by a contemporary view of adult education professional action from a media-educational perspective, which takes into account the interconnectedness of media and sociality. Academic professionalisation in adult education as “specialisation and academisation of professional knowledge” (Egetenmeyer & Schüßler 2012, p. 9; translation FB) represents a professional biographical process that is influenced by social, structural and subjective factors (cf. Egetenmeyer & Schüßler 2014, p. 99). Schüßler and Egetenmeyer (2018, p. 1074) state that the differentiated consideration of the influencing factors sensitises for interactions that shape the individual development of professionalism within the study process. The model developed by the authors was reflected upon from a media-educational perspective in order to elaborate indicators of academic professionalisation and to develop a research perspective for the empirical investigation of media-pedagogical professionalisation strategies that takes into account the changing demands on adult education professionalism and professional action under the conditions of mediatisation and digitalisation.

The papers centres on a study designed to investigate media-pedagogical professionalisation strategies as part of adult education professional development in selected consecutive adult education study programmes in Germany, in order to shed light on the current status of basic media education in these very study programmes.

The study was oriented along a qualitative research paradigm. Specifically, the research style of Grounded Theory was used, based on Strauss and Corbin (1996). The methodological paradigm of Grounded Theory was suitable for the empirical project, as it allowed questions about organisation-specific processes, tasks and dynamics related on media-pedagogical professionalisation in the sense of the integration of systematic media education in selected consecutive adult education study programmes to be investigated. The guiding question for the study was: How is the media-pedagogical professionalisation of prospective adult educators in the sense of basic media education made possible within selected consecutive study programmes with media-educational components at German universities in the framework structures and concrete teaching and learning offers? In order to answer the question, an open qualitative approach was chosen and various data materials were combined with each other. First, the formal-structural anchoring of the media-pedagogical professionalisation of prospective adult educators was the focus of interest. Viewing on the formal framework conditions, organising papers such as study and examination regulations, module handbooks as well as flyers and information brochures on the study programmes were included in the qualitative data analysis. In addition guided expert interviews were conducted with eleven adult and media-educational profile bearers of the respective university locations. The adult and media-educational profile bearers are the teachers working in the study programmes, who exert a structural influence on media-pedagogical professionalisation as part of adult-educational professionalism development at the individual subject level. The study thus locates itself in the field of media-educational professional research at the intersection of adult education, media education and curriculum development. The sample of the study includes three university locations in Germany. The restriction to three university locations followed the principles of contrasting, including constant comparisons (study profiles, thematic orientation and content focus) and aimed to generate as varied a sample as possible for the study. Dimensions of the sampling that contributed to the selection of the three study locations were, in addition to varying study profiles and diverging media-educational emphases, the location in different federal states as well as differences in the size and form of the individual universities. Both the organising papers and the expert interviews were analysed in accordance with the Grounded Theory research style. The analysis was carried out iteratively in three main coding steps (open, axial and selective), which contributed to the condensation of a theory anchored in the subject matter.

The central result of the study is that the media-pedagogical professionalisation within academic adult education study programmes is a student's own contribution. The students themselves are responsible for establishing the transfer between the adult education major and the media-educational components of the programme. The development of media-educational orientation knowledge is self-initiated or self-directed, which requires a high level of motivation of the students. This is largely dependent on the context and intervening conditions that influence, enable and in some cases also hinder media-pedagogical professionalisation in adult education study programmes. On an empirical level, a tense set of conditions as well as interactions could be elucidated, which will be discussed in the paper. With regard to the sample of the study, it is not possible to speak of systematic media education in adult education programmes. Media-pedagogical professionalisation is thus not a fundamental component of academic adult education professional development in Germany. The results of the study partly coincide with findings from practice, where media-pedagogical professionalisation is sometimes also an intrinsic achievement in the context of informal and non-formal learning processes (Bolten & Rott 2018). In addition, the material gives indications of a reductionist image of media education in adult education, so that it is often equated with media didactics (Helbig & Hofhues 2018). At the same time, this has an impact on the individual professionalisation strategies of students who combine media education with the use of digital technologies for teaching. It can be concluded that a basic media education in adult education should go beyond the media-didactical/methodological level (E-learning and blended learning) and should also be more differentiated for practical adult education fields and activities in order to ensure the development of media-educational orientation knowledge and to promote media-pedagogical-professional action within adult education study programmes.

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