How does Online Merge Offline Project-based Learning Improve Pre-service Teachers’ Digital Competence? A case from China

Improving pre-service teachers’ digital competence is an urgent issue that demands immediate action. Traditional teaching and learning approaches, which lack digital practices, tend to steer pre-service teachers towards an excessive focus on theoretical learning, thereby neglecting the needs in the digital education transformation. One of possible solutions is the implementation of online merge offline project-based learning (OMOPBL) model. This research aims to analyze the execution of the OMOPBL model, and its effect on pre-service teachers’ digital competence in a course. This research uses a quasi-experimental design incorporating a non-equivalent control group and conducted in the autumn semester of 2024 for 16 weeks. The participants are 90 pre-service teachers in their second-year in a normal university in China. Valid data collected by kinds of instruments including observation sheets, suggestion forms, and questionnaires and were analyzed by different methods. The results demonstrate high feasibility level of the OMOPBL model, finding a significant effect of model on pre-service teachers’ digital competence. Moreover, pre-service teachers’ digital competence should be treated as a whole and be practiced in an authentic project and digital environment.