In uncertain times, teacher training is an important strategic initiative for overcoming challenges and actively shaping the future. In 2024, a reform of teacher training in Austria was announced, which, among other things, provides for better integration of practical elements into theoretical training. In addition to redesigning the curricula, it is therefore an important task to design courses that contextualise school practice more strongly in educational theory. This is where the study "OPENness for EDUcational Theories and socio-emotional COOPeration (OPEN EDU COOP)" comes in, by theoretically and empirically analysing central construct areas of the development and strengthening of professional action competence facets of teachers.

The construct areas of teacher professionalism selected for the study are openness towards educational theories, the associated positive emotions and the development of social skills. For this purpose, co-operative learning environments are developed and their effectiveness with regard to the construct areas addressed, is empirically investigated. The importance of openness towards educational science theories is emphasised for the theory-based reflection of practical school experiences (Hascher & Hagenauer, 2016; Gastager et al., 2022). Students with this openness have more sustainable learning experiences in the school placement (Donche & van Petegem, 2009). However, students tend to have negative attitudes towards educational theories and prefer to receive practical tips from mentors (Allen & Wright, 2014).

Positive emotions play a key role here, as they expand the thought-action repertoire, promote holistic thinking (Fredrickson, 2001) and can set in motion a positive spiral that leads to the development of personal resources (Kalchgruber et al., 2021). Several studies (Bach & Hagenauer, 2022; van Rooij et al., 2019; Hascher & Waber, 2020) confirm the positive effects of positive emotions on learning experiences in school internships.

Social competences are multi-perspective constructs which Kanning (2015) categorises as perceptive-cognitive, motivational-emotional or behavioural. Kiel et al. (2012) found in an empirical study that prospective teachers experience an increase in competence in the areas of leadership skills, independence, cooperation skills, situational behaviour and sense of responsibility during the course of their studies. Nevertheless, the majority of prospective teachers show moderate leadership, organisational orientation and little interest in cooperation with colleagues and parents of pupils (Mayr, 2012). Rothland (2010) analysed the development of social skills in the first phase of teacher training and found a need for development in the area of conflict skills and social skills among prospective male teachers, and for dealing with sensitivity to social frustration, particularly among female students. The students were less satisfied with their self-assertion and showed an increased tendency towards confrontation in social conflict situations. A sample of the Potsdam Teacher Study (Schaarschmidt & Kieschke, 2007) lead to the conclusion that a quarter of those surveyed showed deficits in the area of social-communicative skills and in their experience of social support. The researched findings illustrate the great potential of teacher training to promote and support students in expanding their social competences.

The didactic intervention of OPEN EDU COOP is based on the systematic use of cooperative elements in order to promote both social competences and the reflective examination of educational science theories in an emotionally positive way. The study thus aims to close previous research gaps regarding students' emotions when dealing with educational science theories. The central research question is derived from these theoretical considerations: What effects are achieved by a cooperative didactic course concept in the training of teacher students with regard to openness towards educational science theories, the associated positive emotions and the development of social competences?

The OPEN EDU COOP study, which is being conducted at the University College of Teacher Education Styria in cooperation with the University of Salzburg, is an intervention that makes cooperative teaching/learning environments available to teacher students and analyses them for the described effects (openness to educational theories, initiation of positive emotions and development of social skills) in a pre-post design. In the winter term 2023/24 (1), a quantitative survey instrument was developed and applied that includes teamwork scales, scales to measure openness towards educational theories, the associated emergence of positive emotions and the development of social competences. At the same time, the intervention programme was developed and tested in two seminar groups. In a further phase (2), the didactic intervention will be implemented in nine seminar groups (N = 252) and the effects will be determined in a pre-post test per term. At the end of each course, the subjective theories of two participating students will be examined using the dialogue-consensus method. In a subsequent phase (3), data will be analysed using statistical tests and content analysis methods to test the hypotheses. The findings are intended to contribute to increasing quality through the use of a cooperative university didactic teaching/learning setting (Wahl, 2020). This contribution is intended to focus on the intervention that the didactic concept depicts and is theoretically justified below. Wahl (2020) recommends a sensible alternation of direct, collective teaching-learning phases and active, participant-centred teaching-learning phases. The emphasis on the latter supports the achievement of sustainable learning success to a greater extent than receptive learning phases because they provide more support for the complex process of subjective acquisition. An innovative learning environment therefore focuses on subjective acquisition, in which students receive orientation in terms of content and learning strategy. From a learning psychology perspective, cooperative teaching/learning environments promote the use of suitable learning strategies and self-regulation. Cognitive conflicts and the experience of self-efficacy through task specialisation have a motivational effect and support a positive social climate. The intervention in OPEN EDU COOP therefore adopts the sandwich principle (Wahl, 2020), which provides for short teaching-learning sequences in which learners actively work in small teams on a joint task related to topics of an educational science course. In addition to the curricular content of educational research, the experiences of the student teachers in their practical educational studies are addressed in reflection cycles.

The instrument developed in test phase 1 was used on a sample (N = 51) that received the intervention described. Analyses of the scales based on this sample show good reliability and can be presented as well as the first results of the main test phase (N = 75) which will take place in the summer term 24. It is expected that the pre-post comparison of the data will show significant positive changes in student teachers’ openness to educational theories, a strengthening of positive emotions when dealing with educational theories and the development of social competences. At the conference, the university didactic intervention will be presented and discussed with European experts. The researchers are interested in positioning OPEN EDU COOP discursively in current research in the European higher education didactics context so that future findings can be integrated into European educational research.

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