Rika Restela, Khairil Ansari, Yusnizar Heniwaty
Creative competence is an essential outcome in arts education, yet many university learning practices remain dominated by conventional instruction that limits students' opportunities for cultural exploration and collaborative creativity. Integrating local cultural heritage into project-based learning can be a meaningful strategy to enhance students' creativity. This study aimed to design and evaluate a Rampoe Aceh-based project learning model to improve students' creative competence in arts education. The research employed a quasi-experimental evaluation with a pretest–posttest control-group design. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in an arts education course, divided into an experimental group implementing the Rampoe Aceh-based project learning model and a control group using conventional project learning. Creative competence was measured using a rubric assessing originality, flexibility, elaboration, and artistic expression. Data were analyzed using an independent-samples t-test to compare gain scores between groups. The results indicated a statistically significant difference in creative competence improvement between the experimental and control groups, t(58) = 6.42, p < .001. The experimental group achieved a higher mean posttest score (M = 84.37, SD = 6.21) compared to the control group (M = 72.15, SD = 7.08), with a large effect size (Cohen's d = 1.21). These findings demonstrate that integrating Rampoe Aceh cultural values into project-based learning effectively enhances students' creative competence. The study suggests that culturally responsive project-based learning models can serve as an innovative pedagogical approach to strengthen creativity in university arts education.. © 2026 Authors.
Universitas Negeri Medan, Indonesia
