Advancing students’ regional potential-based project for vocational education: From 4Cs to 6Cs competencies

This study examined whether Student Regional Potential-Based Project Redesign (SRPP) was associated with advancements in vocational students' self-reported 6Cs competencies: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Character, and Citizenship. A mixed-methods, one-group pretest-posttest design with sequential explanatory logic involved 92 vocational students from Universitas Negeri Padang. Quantitative data were collected before and after the intervention using a validated self-report 6Cs questionnaire. Qualitative insights were obtained through one focus group involving three students, each answering six semi-structured questions. These insights contextualized perceived competency development but were not intended to represent the full cohort. Significant within-group gains occurred across all dimensions (p < .001). Creativity showed a large effect (Cohen's d of 0.87); Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Character showed medium effects; and Citizenship showed a small effect (Cohen's d of 0.46), close to the medium threshold. Students described regionally grounded projects addressing tourism, agricultural value creation, local economic opportunities, and infrastructure challenges as meaningful and connected to social usefulness, sustainability, responsibility, and community value. Given the uncontrolled design and self-reported measures, findings indicate perceived advancements, not causal evidence of objective competency improvement. Overall, SRPP shows promise for extending vocational project-based learning from a 4Cs orientation toward a 6Cs framework.