Exploring the effect of STEM-integrated project-based learning on creativity and collaboration across different student learning styles

Abstract

Higher education is increasingly challenged to develop students’ 21st-century competencies, particularly creativity and collaboration, through effective pedagogical approaches. Project-Based Learning (PBL), especially when integrated with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), has been widely recognized as an effective strategy for promoting experiential and inquiry-based learning that supports these competencies. This study investigates the effectiveness of STEM-integrated PBL in enhancing creativity and collaboration among students within the context of light and optics in the Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Teacher Education (PGMI) program. In addition, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK) categories are employed as descriptive sensory profiles to examine variation in students’ responses to a uniform multimodal learning environment, without positioning learning styles as a basis for instructional personalization. A quasi-experimental 2×3 factorial design was implemented involving 69 PGMI students, divided into an experimental group receiving STEM-PBL instruction and a control group receiving traditional instruction. Data were analyzed using factorial ANOVA to examine the effects of instructional model and learning style on creativity and collaboration. The results show that STEM-PBL significantly improves creativity and collaboration compared to traditional instruction. Kinesthetic learners achieved the highest mean scores, followed by visual and auditory learners; however, no significant interaction was found between instructional model and learning style, indicating that the effectiveness of STEM-PBL is consistent across sensory profile categories. These findings suggest that STEM-integrated PBL is a robust instructional approach for fostering creativity and collaboration in science education, while variation in learning outcomes is better understood through multimodal engagement rather than learning-style-based differentiation.