Sparking minds, shaping futures: how participative learning cultivates creative engagement and career confidence in Indonesian higher education

Purpose This study examines how participative learning relates to students’ career attitudes through creativity process engagement (CPE), thinking skills and self-esteem, and whether interpersonal competence conditions these relationships. Drawing on experiential learning theory (ELT) and self-determination theory (SDT), it integrates cognitive, affective, and interpersonal mechanisms within a unified framework. Design/methodology/approach A two-phase field study involving 11,762 Indonesian university students participating in the Praktisi Mengajar program was conducted. Hayes’ PROCESS Models 6 and 7 tested sequential mediation and moderated mediation using bootstrapped confidence intervals. Findings CPE was positively associated with career attitudes directly and indirectly through thinking skills and self-esteem, including a sequential cognitive–affective pathway. Participative learning was positively associated with CPE and career attitudes, with CPE mediating this relationship. Interpersonal competence strengthened the association between participative learning and CPE and the resulting indirect association with career attitudes. Research limitations/implications The non-experimental, concurrent and self-reported design limits causal inference and may introduce common method bias. Future research should employ longitudinal, experimental and multi-source designs and incorporate practitioner-level characteristics. Practical implications Practitioner-integrated learning should emphasize authentic problem engagement, reflection, idea development, and collaboration while supporting students’ thinking skills, self-evaluations and interpersonal competence. Originality/value The study integrates cognitive, affective and interpersonal mechanisms within an ELT–SDT framework, positioning CPE as a central mechanism linking participative learning and career attitudes. Evidence from a large-scale Indonesian program extends the framework to a non-Western higher education context and identifies interpersonal competence as an important boundary condition.