Problem-based learning (PBL) appears an essential approach that is well-suited for teacher education, due to its positive impact on knowledge retention and application, the changes in attitude, and the improvement in diagnostic skills among prospective teachers (Snyder & McWilliam, 1999; Wedel et al., 2022; Yew & Goh, 2016). Originally designed for medical students, PBL empowers student teachers to take responsibility for their own learning by using realistic cases (Barrows, 1996). In the course of developing solutions and strategies for real-life problems independently, student teachers come to understand themselves as active learners. They also develop their research skills, integrate theory and practice, and apply their knowledge to create practical solutions for defined problems (Savery, 2006). The efficacy of this approach is particularly pronounced when student teachers are presented with a complex problem scenario that has multiple adequate solutions (Hmelo-Silver, 2004).

The European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (2022) highlights four core values for all teachers and education professionals, especially those working in inclusive education: valuing learner diversity, supporting all learners, working with others and personal professional development. The agency underscores the significance of these values and stresses that attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, understanding, and skills must align with the concepts of inclusion (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, 2012, 2022).

The present article focuses on the application of PBL in the field of inclusive and special education and the integration of the core values into teacher education in Germany and Austria. To this end, realistic portrayals of children and young adults with special educational needs were created that are based on the experiences of experts in special and inclusive education. The portrayals encompass individual risk and protective factors pertinent to the child or young adult, the family, and the environment. In accordance with the model of resilience research, factors that hinder resilience are referred to as risk factors, while factors that facilitate resilience are classified as protective factors (Werner, 2020). As delineated in the Methods section, a number of students in Germany and Austria will be assigned the task of identifying protective and risk factors in relation to the portrayals presented and their environment. The utilization of Zoom facilitates collaboration among student teachers from both countries, enabling the exchange of information concerning the protective and risk factors they will have identified. The objective of the joint seminar sessions is to facilitate the collaboration between teacher students from Germany and Austria in the development of strategies and solutions that support children's learning in the classroom environment.

The study seeks to address the following research questions by having student teachers work on the portrayals using PBL:

Q1. To what extent are student teachers able to identify protective and risk factors in the given portrayals?

Q2. What options and strategies do student teachers come up with to support the child in the classroom?

Q3. How do student teachers reflect the collaborative development of solutions?

From May to July 2026, student teachers in Germany and Austria will participate in seminars focusing on collaborative work on the said portrayals. These seminars employ a variety of realistic portrayals of children and young adults, including the Case Kim (Lutz & Ehr, 2026), the Case Lucy (Lutz & Durner, 2025) and the Case Robin (Lutz & Eckerlein, 2024). The student teachers' objective is to identify both protective and risk factors and to discuss them among themselves. In order to present the information in a structured manner, it is recommended that student teachers utilize the case-by-case framework for educational assessment (Lutz, 2023). Based on the specifications in the case-by-case framework, student teachers are tasked with the presentation of individual, family, and environmental risk and protective factors. They will develop approaches and strategies to support or encourage the child in the classroom. The case-by-case framework for educational assessment tool enables the evaluation of the identified outcomes. It is hypothesized that the student teachers' findings will reveal as to whether they have adopted a competence-oriented perspective, which identifies protective factors in the child and its environment, or a deficit-oriented perspective that focuses on risk factors. Furthermore, the investigation will ascertain whether student teachers exhibit a greater inclination towards individual-child-related factors or towards family and environmental factors. A reflective process concerning the learning gains of the student teacher is initiated following the completion of each individual portrayal. They will also evaluate their collaboration and rate the exchange among the seminar participants.

The present study investigates the impact of collaborative problem-based learning on knowledge retention and application as well as on diagnostic skills of student teachers in Germany and Austria. The collaborative problem-based learning (PBL) approach is designed to augment student teachers' awareness of valuing learner diversity, supporting all learners, and working with others. The student teachers are expected to find numerous solutions for the portrayals in a collaborative manner. Previous research suggests that student teachers ascribe greater importance to individual-child-related factors than to environmental factors. This finding is further corroborated by Gebhardt et al. (2022), who found that the majority of first-year students looked on disability from an individual-medical perspective. Any potential enhancements to the portrayals and the PBL approach to be made in future will be addressed.

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