Abstract:

The 4C's skills, which include creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking, are essential for students' success in the 21st century. In addition, there has been significant attention paid to curiosity in research in recent years, as it enhances children's learning experience and raises their cognitive awareness of their knowledge. As part of this study, 171 students from primary schools were given a problem-solving workshop relevant to "Environmental problems." Moreover, in this study, we quantitatively investigate the development of students' 5C skills through environmental problem-based interdisciplinary learning activities. The Five dimensions covered in the survey include (1) curiosity, (2) creativity, (3) collaboration, (4) communication, and (5) critical thinking. Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's Omega coefficients exceeded 0.7 for each dimension, confirming the reliability based on internal consistency.
Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney U test analysis revealed that the workshop was equally effective in improving students' 5C skills for both genders. In addition, the Pearson correlation test revealed a positive correlation between the 5C skills (curiosity, creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking) for both genders (p < 0.01). Based on this study, we have discovered that problem-based learning experiences centered on environmental problems foster students' 5C skills. Therefore, we believe these findings would encourage the inclusion of curiosity in the 4C skills and guide educators to design curriculums that will enable students to nurture the 5C skills.

Keywords:

STEM Education, 5C skills, Problem-based-learning.