Development of Inclusive competence among master’s students through a digital-supported pedagogical intervention

Abstract

The study aimed to develop and experimentally evaluate a digital-supported pedagogical intervention for developing students’ inclusive competence during professional training. A quasi-experimental pedagogical study was conducted from 2023 to 2025 with 174 master’s students, including an experimental group (EG, n = 84) and a control group (CG, n = 90). Students’ inclusive competence was assessed according to four criteria: motivational, cognitive, activity, and reflective, with three levels of formation (low, average, and high). During the formative stage, the experimental group participated in a digital-supported inclusive training program that integrated digital learning environments, interactive and adaptive digital tools, specialized digital resources, practical tasks, professional cases, training sessions, seminars, master classes, mentoring, and reflective activities. The control group continued regular professional training without the targeted intervention. Changes in the distributions of competence levels were analyzed using Pearson’s chi-square (χ²) criterion. The results demonstrated positive changes in the experimental group across all four criteria. The proportion of students with a high cognitive level increased from 20.24% at the ascertaining stage to 38.10% at the control stage, while the high reflective level increased from 21.43% to 34.52%. The experimental group also demonstrated a reduction in the proportion of students at the low level, particularly for the cognitive criterion, where it decreased from 42.86% to 7.14%. These findings indicate positive changes in students’ inclusive competence following implementation of the digital-supported pedagogical intervention.