ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
On the development and potential influential aspects of prospective science teachers' competencies for the use of explainer videos for learning in physics education
Michelle Hermann
Markus Wilhelm
Dorothee Brovelli
University of Teacher Education Lucerne, Lucerne, Switzerland
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Abstract
Studies point to the potential of explainer videos in science education as a part of STEM-education but at the same time criticize their heterogeneous quality. As explainer videos can only be fully exploited as efficient digital educational resources if both the quality and the embedding are adequate, teachers need to be able to recognize the quality aspects of explainer videos and to embed them in their lessons in a way that is effective for learning. The extent to which science teachers can draw on their professional knowledge in this process, when they select and embed explainer videos from participatory platforms such as YouTube for their teaching, has not yet been investigated. Therefore, this study investigates the development of (prospective) science teachers' professional vision of learning-support features of two explainer videos about concepts for the electrical circuits at the lower secondary level (N = 229) with a mixed methods approach. A path model reveals that prospective science teachers' professional vision as a facet of their situated skills for lesson planning with digital media increases over the course of their studies. At the same time prospective teachers are unable to draw on their topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge about the electrical circuit. Neither the TPACK self-concept nor the educational beliefs towards digital media influence the professional vision on a significant level. The results indicate that prospective science teachers' topic-specific professional knowledge does not support an adequate selection and effective embedding of explainer videos in teaching and learning. This points to the need to strengthen media-related training for prospective science teachers in their subject-specific training with a focus on the selection and integration of explainer videos.
Summary
Keywords
Explainer videos, mixed methods, physics education, professional knowledge, professionalvision, Prospective science teachers
Received
06 August 2025
Accepted
09 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Hermann, Wilhelm and Brovelli. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Michelle Hermann
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.