Promotion of Geography Student Teachers’ Abilities to Diagnose Pupils’ Written Argumentation Skills with the Help of a Diagnostic Tool

Argumentation competencies are essential in order to participate in social discourse. Teaching these skills is one of the aims of geography lessons. However, since pupils often find it difficult to produce correct, complete and convincing arguments, there is a need for support from the teacher in developing these skills. In order to be able to support pupils individually, their existing argumentation competencies must first be determined by an educational diagnosis. In the study presented here, a diagnostic tool was developed in a digital learning unit and used and evaluated in a seminar with geography student teachers (This study was conducted with student teachers of the subject geography. We will further refer them as “students”) at the University of Cologne in Germany. The study showed that the students were mostly able to use the diagnostic tool correctly and to apply it competently. The results of the evaluation also showed a high level of acceptance of the OER and a good rating of the diagnostic tool by the students, especially due to its practical relevance.