Differential Pathways to Student Engagement in Mongolian Intangible Cultural Heritage Music Education: The Roles of Course Design, Learning Resources, and Personal Interest

Background: Higher education in multicultural settings must support the transmission of group-specific intangible cultural heritage (ICH) while making that heritage accessible to students from different cultural backgrounds. Culturally responsive pedagogy offers one response to this challenge, but evidence regarding whether its correlates operate similarly across ethnic groups remains limited. Purpose: This study examines the associations of perceived course design (CD), learning resources (LR), and personal interest (PI) with student engagement (SE) in Mongolian ICH music education. It also tests whether the corresponding structural paths differ between Mongolian and Non-Mongolian students. Method: A cross-sectional survey was administered to 120 university music students (68 Mongolian and 52 Non-Mongolian) at four universities in Inner Mongolia. The analysis combined exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), and permutation-based multi-group analysis (MGA). Results: In the pooled sample, course design (beta = 0.298), learning resources (beta = 0.247), and personal interest (beta = 0.422) were each positively associated with engagement (all p < .001), with personal interest showing the largest coefficient. EFA and CFA supported the proposed four-factor structure (CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.046). MGA identified a significant group difference only for the personal interest-to-engagement path (delta beta = 0.11, p = .024), which was stronger among Mongolian students. Although the course-design and learning-resource coefficients were descriptively larger among Non-Mongolian students, those group differences were not statistically significant. Conclusion: The findings support differentiated, but cautiously framed, pedagogical responses in multicultural ICH education. They provide direct evidence that personal interest is a comparatively stronger correlate of engagement among Mongolian students and descriptive, non-conclusive indications that course design and learning resources may be especially relevant for Non-Mongolian students. The proposed dual-track responsiveness model should therefore be treated as an evidence-informed framework for further testing rather than as a fully established causal model.