Automated online learning in pre-service teacher education: A one-group study of recognition-based learning outcomes and estimated workload substitution

Theerapat Sinthudech, Paweena Khansila and Anucha Pimsak

African Educational Research Journal
Published: September 9 2026
Volume 14, Issue 3
Pages 707-716
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22690737

Abstract

Faculties of education are increasingly required to develop competences for which they have no staffing capacity, and automated online provision is the usual response. This study asks not whether such provision works but how much staff workload it can be estimated to absorb, and whether that absorption is even across a language competence. The course was designed around self-directed learning, with staff facilitating rather than being removed. An online micro-credential in Thai professional communication comprising 22 lessons was developed through educational design research and delivered to pre-service teachers across three refinement cycles without live instruction, with all assessment machine scored. The analysed sample comprises 128 pre-service teachers, all of whom completed all 22 lessons within the allocated time. Against the faculty workload framework, conventional delivery in four sections would have required 280 contact hours and the marking of 2,944 papers, equivalent to 147 to 245 hours, a cost the faculty could not meet and the reason the competence had gone undeveloped. Learning gains on recognition-based tests were substantial, with post-instruction scores of 49.37 exceeding pre-instruction scores of 31.66 out of 80, t(127) = 30.03, p < .001, d = 2.25, 95% CI [16.54, 18.87]. Lessons targeting productive skills showed a lower mean first-attempt pass rate than receptive lessons, 82.4% against 86.8%, but the difference was not significant, U = 64.0, p = .605. We report the recognition-production boundary as a hypothesis warranting direct test, and distinguish estimated workload substitution from realised saving throughout.

Keywords: Teaching capacity, automated assessment, online course delivery, recognition-based measurement, teacher education, educational design research.

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