Digital teaching has become a taken-for-granted component of teacher education across Europe. Beyond questions of infrastructure or instructional design, digitalisation increasingly shapes how teaching, learning and professional responsibility are modelled within universities of teacher education. In this context, higher education teaching does not merely transmit knowledge or skills, but functions as a professionalisation context in which future teachers develop orientations, beliefs and normative understandings of “good teaching”.

While European and international research has extensively examined digital competences, technology integration and effectiveness of digital formats, comparatively little attention has been paid to how teacher educators themselves conceptualise the quality of digital teaching, and how these conceptions implicitly structure professional learning processes. This study addresses this gap by focusing on lecturers’ didactic orientations in digital higher education teaching and their relevance for professionalisation in teacher education.

The study is guided by the following research question:

How do lecturers in teacher education conceptualise the quality of digital teaching, and how do these conceptions function as implicit professionalisation conditions for prospective teachers?

This overarching question is specified through three objectives:

1. To reconstruct lecturers’ understandings of “good” digital teaching in teacher education.
2. To identify recurring didactic orientations that structure how digital teaching is designed, justified and evaluated.
3. To analyse how these orientations implicitly model professional norms, values and expectations for future teachers.

The study contributes to European discussions on teacher professionalisation by shifting attention from digital competences to professional orientations and modelling processes within higher education teaching.

The study is theoretically grounded in professionalisation theory and research on teacher beliefs and orientations. Teacher education is conceptualised as a professionalisation space, in which professional development is understood as a long-term, biographical process rather than the acquisition of discrete competences. From this perspective, professional learning involves developing the capacity to deal with uncertainty, normative tensions and conflicting demands inherent in teaching practice.

Didactic orientations are understood as relatively stable, often implicit interpretative frameworks that guide how lecturers perceive teaching situations, make pedagogical decisions and define quality. Drawing on research on beliefs and orientations in teacher education, these orientations are assumed to be shaped by biographical experiences, institutional contexts and disciplinary cultures, and to exert a strong structuring influence on professional learning processes.

Digital teaching is not conceptualised as a separate pedagogical domain, but as a context in which existing didactic orientations become particularly visible. International research suggests that digitalisation rarely transforms teaching practices in a linear way; instead, digital formats tend to reinforce or accentuate underlying pedagogical beliefs. In teacher education, this has specific relevance, as teaching practices simultaneously address students as learners and as future professionals.

The concept of implicit modelling is central to the framework. Higher education teaching is understood as modelling professional practice not only through explicit instruction, but through implicit norms embedded in teaching design, assessment practices and the use of digital technologies. In this sense, quality conceptions held by teacher educators function as implicit professionalisation conditions that shape how future teachers understand legitimate teaching practices.

The study follows an explorative qualitative design informed by the Grounded Theory methodology. Data were collected through open-ended written responses from lecturers at two Swiss universities of teacher education. The sample includes lecturers from different subject areas and professional backgrounds, reflecting the diversity of teacher education contexts.

Data analysis proceeded iteratively through open, axial and selective coding, aiming to reconstruct shared patterns of meaning rather than individual attitudes. The analysis resulted in a typology of three ideal-typical didactic orientations towards digital teaching: technology-enthusiastic, pragmatic-functional and sceptical-traditional. These orientations are not understood as fixed types, but as heuristic constructs that capture dominant patterns of meaning.

The study adopts an explorative qualitative research design aimed at reconstructing lecturers’ didactic orientations towards digital teaching in teacher education and their relevance for professionalisation processes. Given the study’s interest in implicit meanings, interpretative frameworks and shared patterns of understanding, a qualitative approach was considered most appropriate. Research Context and Sample The study was conducted at two Swiss universities of teacher education, which represent key institutional contexts for initial teacher education within the European Higher Education Area. These institutions combine academic teaching with a strong professional orientation and thus provide a particularly suitable setting for analysing digital teaching as a professionalisation context. Participants were recruited through institutional mailing lists and open calls. The sample includes lecturers from different subject areas, levels of teaching experience and professional backgrounds. This heterogeneity was deliberately sought in order to capture a broad range of perspectives on digital teaching in teacher education. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. Data Collection Data were collected using an open-ended written survey. This format allowed participants to articulate their understandings of “good” digital teaching in their own words, without being constrained by predefined categories or evaluative scales. The survey included prompts focusing on: • lecturers’ conceptions of quality in digital teaching, • perceived opportunities and challenges of digital formats in teacher education, • and reflections on the role of digital teaching for preparing future teachers. Written responses were chosen to facilitate reflective articulation and to enable participation across different schedules and institutional roles. Analytical Procedure Data analysis followed principles of the Grounded Theory methodology, with an emphasis on reconstructing shared orientations rather than individual attitudes. Analysis proceeded iteratively through open, axial and selective coding. During open coding, meaning units were identified and compared across cases. Axial coding focused on relating categories and identifying central dimensions that structured lecturers’ understandings of digital teaching. In the selective coding phase, recurring patterns were integrated into a typology of didactic orientations. Throughout the analysis, constant comparison was used to refine categories and to test emerging interpretations against the data. Memos were employed to document analytical decisions and to support reflexivity. Methodological Contribution By combining an open-ended survey format with a Grounded Theory–informed analysis, the study captures how digital teaching is interpreted as a professionalisation context within teacher education. The methodology allows for identifying implicit orientations that shape professional modelling processes and offers insights that are transferable to comparable teacher education contexts across Europe.

The study shows that digital teaching in teacher education functions less as a driver of pedagogical innovation and more as a context in which existing didactic orientations of teacher educators become visible, stabilised and transmitted. Rather than producing fundamentally new conceptions of teaching, digital formats tend to accentuate underlying beliefs about learning, teaching and professional responsibility. The analysis identifies three ideal-typical didactic orientations towards digital teaching: a technology-enthusiastic orientation that emphasises innovation, experimentation and the transformative potential of digital tools; a pragmatic-functional orientation that focuses on feasibility, efficiency and institutional requirements; and a sceptical-traditional orientation that prioritises subject matter integrity, face-to-face interaction and pedagogical continuity. These orientations are not mutually exclusive or fixed, but represent dominant interpretative patterns that structure how lecturers design, justify and evaluate digital teaching. A key finding is that these didactic orientations function as implicit professionalisation conditions for prospective teachers. Through the everyday practices of digital teaching—such as the choice of formats, assessment practices, feedback mechanisms and the framing of technology use—lecturers implicitly model what counts as legitimate, responsible and “good” teaching. In this sense, digital teaching operates as a site of professional modelling, shaping students’ emerging professional beliefs and expectations. The study further suggests that digital teaching amplifies existing tensions within teacher education, particularly between innovation and continuity, autonomy and standardisation, and pedagogical ideals and institutional constraints. These tensions are not resolved through technology itself, but are negotiated through lecturers’ didactic orientations. Overall, the findings contribute to European teacher education research by reframing digital teaching as a professionalisation context rather than a technical challenge.

Biggs, J., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at university (4th ed.). Open University Press. Blömeke, S. (2017). Modelling teachers’ professional competence as a multi-dimensional construct. In S. Guerriero (Ed.), Pedagogical knowledge and the changing nature of the teaching profession (pp. 119–135). OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264270695-7-en Endres, B., Risch, B., & Stürmer, K. (2020). Teachers’ beliefs and professional development: A systematic review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 90, 103–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2020.103014 Eraut, M. (2004). Informal learning in the workplace. Studies in Continuing Education, 26(2), 247–273. https://doi.org/10.1080/158037042000225245 Gosling, D. (2009). Educational development in the UK: A complex and contradictory reality. International Journal for Academic Development, 14(1), 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440802659122 Grossman, P., Hammerness, K., & McDonald, M. (2009). Redefining teaching, re-imagining teacher education. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 15(2), 273–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600902875340 Harvey, L. (2024). Defining quality thirty years on: Quality, standards, assurance, culture and epistemology. Quality in Higher Education, 30(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13538322.2024.2304413 Kember, D., & Kwan, K. P. (2000). Lecturers’ approaches to teaching and their relationship to conceptions of good teaching. Instructional Science, 28, 469–490. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026569608656 Kember, D., & Lam, B. H. (2006). The relationship between conceptions of teaching and approaches to teaching. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 12(6), 693–713. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600601029744 Kirkwood, A., & Price, L. (2013). Missing: Evidence of a scholarly approach to teaching and learning with technology in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 18(3), 327–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2013.773419 Košinár, J., & Laros, A. (2023). Die Praxislehrperson als Akteur:in professioneller Sozialisation. Beiträge zur Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung, 41(2), 234–250. Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543062003307 Petko, D., & Döbeli Honegger, B. (2011). Digitale Medien in der schweizerischen Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung. Beiträge zur Lehrerinnen- und Lehrerbildung, 29(1), 3–16. Price, L., & Kirkwood, A. (2014). Using technology for teaching and learning in higher education: A critical review of the role of evidence in informing practice. Higher Education Research & Development, 33(3), 549–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.841643 Selwyn, N. (2016). Education and technology: Key issues and debates (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury.