„Structural and social inequality“ (Zengilowski et al., 2023, S. 1) as well as „mechanisms that reproduce injustice and inequality“ (MacKenzie, Chiang & Thurston, 2022, S. 1) shape schools and teaching. Concurrently, there is a normative demand for a culture of education and teaching that is sensitive towards heterogeneity and inclusion, which has been legally established throughout Europe since the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The goal is to achieve collaborative learning and equal participation of all children, regardless of their learning conditions, in general mainstream education and the mainstream school system. The project focuses on inclusive primary school education, in which students with and without intellectual disabilities learn together. Consequently, a wide heterogeneity of individual learning conditions can be assumed (Ratz & Selmayr, 2021). The design of such inclusive instruction situation attributes potential to digital media because various opportunities for participation can be made accessible for a heterogenous student body through and with them (Kamin, 2020).

Digital media and the associated digitalization of all areas of live have, especially since the pandemic, shaped society and, consequently, school and education as whole. Generally, there is a consensus that the task of school education is to prepare all students for active engagement with and use of media, as well as reflection on media. Digital Storytelling presents an exemplary concept for designing inclusive digital teaching. Within the framework of Digital Storytelling, a literary story can be read and narrated using not only convention means (images, text) but also expanded ones (photo, video, audio). Due to the diverse, multimodal expressive possibilities, all children with heterogenous learning conditions can work on a common subject at different performance levels (Warmdt, Frisch, Ratz & Pohlmann-Rother, 2023).

Normatively, there is a demand to design such digitally inclusive instruction, like Digital Storytelling, with high quality. When looking at the current research discourse in German-speaking countries, it can be observed that publications on inclusive instruction (Bohl, 2017) and on instruction with digital media (Quast, Rubach & Lazarides, 2021) reference classical research on teaching quality and, consequently, cognitive activation. In cognitively activating instruction, the goal is to stimulate all learners according to their individual learning conditions to engage with challenging tasks that promote understanding and inference (Groß-Mlynek, Graf, Harring, Gabriel-Busse & Feldhoff, 2022, S. 1). In recent years, numerous German-language research projects on cognitive activation can be found, while in the international discourse, closely related concepts are often explored (e.g. „deeper learning“ by Meyer, Imhof, Coyle und Banerjee in 2018). When looking at the (subject-specific) operationalization and the mechanisms of action for cognitive activation, the research works exhibit a divergent and inconsistent picture (Groß-Mlynek et al., 2022, S. 3). One reason for this may be that the effects of cognitive activation in the studies are examined across the entire class rather than focusing on individual children (Begrich et al., 2023; Rieser & Decristan, 2023). Previous studies have often focused on the question of which an instructional approach leads to what effort or outcome however, individual influencing factors are mostly disregarded (Kunter & Ewald, 2016, S. 20). The individual and differential perspective in teaching quality research is the focus of the project. This is done using the example of individual cognitive activation in inclusive primary school instruction attended by students with and without intellectual disabilities, addressing the following two questions:

1. Which individually cognitively activating teaching and learning situations can be described in inclusive small group work on Digital Storytelling?
2. What differences in the number and type of codings for individual cognitive activation are evident for each student regarding the stigma surrounding intellectual disability?

To analyze individual cognitive activation at the instructional process level, a project week on Digital Storytelling was designed (a). It was conducted and videotaped in eight inclusive first and second-grade classes (b). The collected video data was then processed (c) and analyzed (d). The following sections will elaborate on these four methodological steps. a) Design of the Project Week: In an iterative process, a project spanning five days on “Digital Storytelling mit Hund Milo” (Digital Storytelling with Dog Milo) (Warmdt & Frisch, 2023) was developed. Students were introduced to the multimodal storytelling features of the Book Creator app, which they then used on iPads to continue the story. On the last day of the project, students presented their multimodal work results. b) Classroom Videography and Collection of Background Information: The study’s sample consists of eight inclusive first and second-grade classes in the state of Bavaria, Germany, with students, both those with and without intellectual disabilities. Teachers and students were videotaped from three different perspectives: inclusive small-group work, screencast on the iPad, and overall classroom activities. In addition, background information on students (e.g. literacy learning conditions) and teachers (e.g. beliefs about the use of digital media) were collected through a questionnaire. c) Preparation and Transcription of Video Data: The data collection resulted in videos of 18 inclusive small groups, showcasing the interactions among the 38 first and second-grade students and their interactions with teachers while working on Digital Storytelling. The video data were processed using DaVinci Resolve software (cropping, anonymizing, synchronizing, etc.) and transcribed verbally and subsequently evaluated using the Interact software. d) Inductive-Deductive Analysis of Video Data: The focus of the analysis is on an instructional phase on the fourth day of the project, where students digitally continue the story. The analysis was conducted with a content-structuring approach using qualitative content analysis, leading to the deductive-inductive development of a category system for individual cognitive activation. Each category was specified (through consensus coding) with descriptions, anchor examples, coding rules, and delimitation rules.

In the inclusive small-group work on Digital Storytelling, a total of 1927 codings for individual cognitive activation were identified for the 38 students. Eight different main categories for individual cognitive activation were observed, some of which were further differentiated down to the fourth sub-level: the development of one's own idea, activation of knowledge, content verification, reasoning, discussion of content, problem-solving, literary elaboration of an own literary idea, and linking different forms of representation or modalities (see Research Question 1). Regarding the frequency distributions for each main category, a divergent picture emerges. For example, students activate literary, media, or (written) language knowledge a total of 641 times during the small-group work phase, while they discuss the content of their ideas (N = 26) or provide reasoning for it (N = 32) much less frequently. In addition to the divergent frequency distributions for each main category, there are also clear differences in the number and type of codings for each individual student regarding the stigma of intellectual disability (see Research Question 2). The analysis reveals that, on average, almost twice as many codings are assigned for elementary students without intellectual disabilities compared to children with intellectual disabilities. All main categories, except for the development of one's own idea and linking different forms of representation or modalities, are more frequently coded for elementary students without intellectual disabilities than for children with intellectual disabilities. The differences in the number and type of codings for individual cognitive activation due to the stigma of intellectual disability underscore the necessity of taking a differentiated approach to each individual student in teaching quality research in inclusive education focused on Digital Storytelling.

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