Enhancing civic intellectual and participation skills through interactive learning strategies

Abstract

Interactive learning strategies are increasingly recognised as central to civic education, yet their contribution to civic intellectual and participation skills remains underexplored. This article examines how interactive learning strategies enhance university students’ civic intellectual and participation skills within an Indonesian higher education setting. Using a qualitative, single instrumental case study design, the study gathered data through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and documentation involving one lecturer and five students at a state Islamic university in Jakarta, and analysed them using Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña’s interactive data analysis model. The findings show that interactive learning strategies foster active, meaningful, and enjoyable learning by shifting students from passive recipients to active participants, thereby strengthening civic intellectual skills such as critical thinking, analysis, and argumentation, alongside civic participation skills including collaboration, communication, and democratic engagement. Unlike prior studies that emphasise civic knowledge acquisition alone, this article demonstrates that interactive strategies simultaneously cultivate the intellectual and participatory dimensions of civic skills. These findings contribute to civic education pedagogy by offering an empirically grounded account of how interactive learning translates into meaningful civic competence, with implications for curriculum design and lecturer training in higher education.