Vol.:(0123456789) Instructional Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-018-9472-2 1 3 Promoting pre‑service teachers’ integration of professional knowledge: efects of writing tasks and prompts on learning from multiple documents Thomas Lehmann 1  · Benjamin Rott 2  · Florian Schmidt‑Borcherding 1 Received: 20 May 2017 / Accepted: 11 September 2018 © Springer Nature B.V. 2018 Abstract The present study aims to investigate the efects of writing tasks and prompts on knowl- edge integration across domains. One hundred pre-service teachers were asked to read and develop a global understanding of textbook excerpts from the core domains of their professional knowledge: content knowledge (CK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and peda- gogical content knowledge (PCK). In an experimental 2 × 2 design, we varied two means to support knowledge integration, namely, essay writing tasks (unspecifc vs. argument) and preactional integration prompts in the form of focus questions (with vs. without). In addition to the essays, a pre-post-knowledge test and an intertextual inference verifcation task served as dependent variables. Students’ motivation was assessed as a covariate. In all experimental conditions, students showed signifcant knowledge gains within the three domains. A category-driven content analysis of students’ essays indicated main efects of both writing tasks and prompts. That is, the argument task and the prompts independently promoted knowledge integration across domains. For the intertextual inference verifcation task, the positive infuence of prompts was restricted to students in the unspecifc writing task condition and in consideration of a compensatory efect of motivation. Taken together, the study expands evidence for the efcacy of argument tasks and preactional prompts on promoting knowledge integration across pre-service teachers’ CK, PK, and PCK. The fndings are discussed with regard to multiple-document comprehension and pre-service teacher education. Keywords Knowledge integration · Teacher knowledge · Multiple-document comprehension · Writing-to-learn · Prompts · Pre-service teacher education Introduction Integrating information from multiple documents is a common requirement of univer- sity studies. Pre-service teacher education in particular includes studying at least three domains: (a) one or more subjects to be taught later on, (b) general pedagogy, and (c) * Thomas Lehmann tlehmann@uni-bremen.de Extended author information available on the last page of the article