Digital technology has emerged as a key topic in the context of digital transformation in educational systems (Selwyn 2012) and of recent teaching and learning challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic (Carrillo and Flores 2020). As such, it is also central to higher education. The ways in which digital technology can effectively support assessment and teaching and learning in higher education are recognized as particularly relevant to educational processes (Dumford and Miller 2018).

In recent years, students’ familiarity with distance learning has been enhanced by the rapidly growing digitalization of learning opportunities and their experiences of having been obliged to study remotely for extended periods of their study program. Meanwhile, educators have discovered new approaches to teaching and have increased their confidence in using digital tools. Along with conventional teaching methods, new digital approaches in higher education have become increasingly important—for example, in terms of how students access study programs or how their learning outcomes are assessed. Diverse approaches enrich the landscape and require new methods of integrating technology as part of pedagogical innovation in higher education (Rapanta et al. 2021). Consequently, higher education institutions worldwide have subsequently sought to implement effective methods for digitalized teaching and learning. In Germany, this has also been reflected in educational policy (KMK 2017, 2019; SWK 2021, 2022).

Within the last decade, research on modeling and measuring competencies as well as student learning outcomes in higher education has progressed remarkably (for an overview, see Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al. 2020). Moreover, numerous studies of teaching and learning outcomes in higher education have yielded substantial empirical evidence. These efforts have resulted in significant methodological innovations, including the development of assessments (Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia et al. 2020) that satisfy the high educational and psychological measurement standards (e.g., AERA et al. 2014).

Recent advances in higher education competence research may be used to develop effective (digital) pedagogical interventions and approaches to assessing student learning outcomes. However, transferring educational research findings and approaches into practice is generally challenging (Shavelson in this issue), and systematic research is required to support the successful transition to digital teaching and learning in higher education. This includes investigating how assessment instruments work in diverse teaching and learning contexts and institutions, how analysis methods can be automated for scaling and effective feedback, and the efficacy of digital learning tools.

The present special issue aims to contribute to bridging this gap in empirical educational research by drawing on various projects from the research program Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education (KoKoHs)—particularly its third phase, which spanned from 2020 to 2022 (funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF); https://www.kompetenzen-im-hochschulsektor.de). The program’s previous two phases (2011–2015 and 2015–2019) primarily aimed at developing and testing competence models and innovative measurement approaches. During the third phase, the KoKoHs projects sought to transfer their findings and methodological advances into practice to address universities’ daily teaching-learning and assessment practice demands. This transfer requires approaches related to assessment instruments measuring student learning outcomes and pedagogical interventions (e.g., digital training tools) to support such outcomes in higher education teaching and learning contexts (for an overview, see https://www.wihoforschung.de/de/transferprojekte-3195.php). During the third program phase, two-thirds of the KoKoHs projects focused on teacher education and training in various school subjects (e.g., mathematics, physics, economic science, German as a second language), thus forming a project cluster. The remaining projects form another cluster that focuses on questions relating to students’ generic competence—for example, regarding self-regulated skills to comprehend multiple documents. The various transfer approaches implemented in these projects range from the adaptation and application of developed assessment tools to the broad implementation of digital teaching and learning approaches in higher education (e.g., digital adaptation and upscaling of training), advances in feedback systems, and the evaluation of digital teaching and learning tools. The KoKoHs projects presented in the present issue offer insights into the transfer approaches and provide empirically supported knowledge concerning which methods might work in the context of digitalization at higher education institutions.

The present special issue comprises contributions of KoKoHs projects related to both teacher education and students’ generic competence. It also includes contributions from other KoKoHs network projects that present transfer approaches and corresponding empirical research from various domains. The issue opens with a conceptual paper, followed by six empirical papers, and concludes with a literature review. In the opening paper, Richard J. Shavelson reflects on how competence assessment may be transferred to teaching and learning in higher education in relation to the connections between empirical research and educational practice. The third phase of the KoKoHs program provides the context for Shavelson’s reflections and serves as the starting point for addressing the following issues: the teaching-learning-assessment triangle, summative and formative assessment, formative uses of assessment, and affordances of technology. Shavelson reflects on various means of transfer and, by presenting key perspectives, enriches the current research and policy discourse in Germany and beyond. His reflections serve both as valuable insights into progress hitherto and as inspiring perspectives for future research and measures of transfer action to be taken and supported by educational policy.

The first of the six empirical study papers in the present special issue originates from the KoKoHs “ProfiLeP-Transfer” project. In this paper, Christoph Kulgemeyer, Josef Riese, Christoph Vogelsang, David Buschhüter, Andreas Borowski, Anna Weißbach, Melanie Jordans, Peter Reinhold and Horst Schecker present a newly developed theoretical model of teacher education assessment. They aim to shed light on the effects that may ensue when assessment tools are transferred into digital formats, and their findings reveal that digitization may diminish the authenticity of assessment instruments. They further discuss the role of authenticity in valid assessments of action-related aspects of professional competence.

The second empirical paper draws on the KoKoHs project “TEDS Validation Transfer”, which is based on the assessment approach that originates from the TEDS‑M research program (Teacher Education and Development Study—Mathematics), which developed a video-based test to measure the situation-specific skills (i.e., the perception, interpretation, and decision-making skills) of in-service mathematics teachers. In their empirical study, Jonas Weyers, Johannes König, Benjamin Rott, Gilbert Greefrath, Katrin Vorhölter, and Gabriele Kaiser use this video-based test to evaluate mathematics teacher education at six universities. Using a sample of 313 pre-service mathematics teachers enrolled in these universities, Weyers et al. investigate the instrument’s internal structure (scaling models based on item response theory) and its association with relevant factors, including learning opportunities in mathematics education at university.

In the third empirical paper, Kristina Gerhard, Daniela Jäger-Biela, and Johannes König present a novel test to assess teachers’ technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) in a standardized way. In a departure from prior studies, this study uses standardized tests instead of self-reports. In a sample of 338 undergraduate trainee teachers shortly before graduation at one large teacher education university in Germany, Gerhard et al. investigate what learning opportunities and personal factors of pre-service teachers contribute to TPK as an outcome of teacher education. Their findings indicate that TPK is only indirectly affected during teacher training by general pedagogical knowledge acquired through corresponding and more conventional general pedagogical learning opportunities. This highlights a fundamental gap in teacher education curricula, which are currently lagging behind present-day expectations regarding digital technology transfer.

Lukas Mientus, Peter Wulff, Anna Nowak, and Andreas Borowski focus on reflective competencies as a key component of teachers’ professional development. Teachers’ competencies can be inferred from computer-based instruments involving video vignettes. Machine learning algorithms analyzed 110 written reflections on a video vignette, and the authors modeled and validated a scalable metric to assess the structure evident in the teachers’ reflective reasoning process. This allows automated scoring of text quality in which the text length is extracted as a typical quality correlate. Based on their findings, Mientus et al. conclude that the structures of written reflections form a robust basis for enhanced reflection.

Hannes Münchow, Simon P. Tiffin-Richards, Lorena Fleischmann, Stephanie Pieschl, and Tobias Richter investigate how it might be possible to promote students’ informal argument comprehension and evaluation skills, which are necessary for scientific reasoning, through the implementation of two training interventions as a facultative online tool in a regular university course. This study evaluates these interventions’ effectiveness in fostering students’ ability to comprehend and evaluate arguments. The crossover-experimental pre-test study with 29 participants indicates general student improvement in scientific literacy measures across both trainings. The findings indicate that online training interventions for scientific literacy can be effectively integrated into higher education.

Theresa Zink, Carolin Hahnel, Ulf Kroehne, Tobias Deribo, Nina Mahlow, Cordula Artelt, Frank Goldhammer, Johannes Naumann, and Cornelia Schoor examine motivational factors relating to multiple document comprehension skills and their potential impact on the use of self-study materials to foster these skills. This study not only demonstrates that utility value plays a central role but also reveals how different motivational factors may interfere with successful learning processes.

The final paper is a literature review by Carina Albu and Anke Lindmeier, who provide an overview of recent advances and current performance assessment instruments in teacher education research in German-speaking countries. Twenty selected assessment instruments are grouped into three teacher performance assessment types that exhibit characteristic differences with respect to the expected performance type. The review may inform future reporting standards for emerging performance assessment approaches in teacher education.

Overall, the present special issue contributes significantly to higher education digitalization transfer research—in particular, highlighting implications for transfer practice. With these eight papers, this issue highlights both the potentials and benefits as well as the limitations and challenges of such transfer studies in higher education practice. By identifying the specific strengths and shortcomings of empirical transfer research, this issue reveals the central desiderata in the corresponding field. In view of current trends in higher education and other areas of education (KMK 2019, SWK 2021, 2022), such transfer studies are becoming increasingly significant amid the demand for research-based recommendations as to how future evidence-based transfer research and practice in higher education and beyond might be strengthened. This issue will promote discussion and development in the empirical research community with respect to criteria, standards and quality of transfer research, which are still lacking but urgently required.

In conclusion, we would like to thank all authors for their excellent contributions, which offer valuable insights into the field of transfer research in higher education. We are also grateful to the reviewers who substantially contributed to the quality of the studies presented in this issue. Finally, we wish to thank the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for funding the KoKoHs research and, in particular, the third transfer phase that is the focus of this issue.