Accompanying the practical training of physiotherapists at the vocational school ulmkolleg, an internet-based learning platform was designed and implemented in the clinical education period. This platform also represented the research environment of the project. The aim of this platform was to accompany and support the clinical training on patients and the learning process of the students. Furthermore, research questions in the field of collaborative knowledge construction and individual learning were investigated over the entire course of training.

A key objective of the physiotherapy training is to support the students in their professional development to a reflected practitioner, i.e. the students should learn to make reflected decisions in the course of treatment on their own and to document their treatment and findings. In the cooperation project, quasi-experimental field studies investigated to what extent the use of an online platform supported the acquisition of knowledge and the development of relevant competencies. For this purpose, studies on communication (peer-tutoring), knowledge acquisition and the ability to reflect on one's own work were conducted. The findings were used for the further development of the online platform.