Advancing Green Pedagogical Competence Through Circular Economy-Integrated Project-Based Learning: Evidence from Prospective Vocational Teacher

The transition to a green economy requires vocational teacher education institutions to prepare prospective teachers with sustainability-oriented pedagogical competence. Integrating sustainability principles into teacher education, however, remains difficult, particularly in developing Green Pedagogical Competence (GPC) among prospective vocational teachers. This study tests the effectiveness of a Circular Economy-Integrated Project-Based Learning (CE-PjBL) model in improving the GPC of Electrical Engineering Education students. It uses a quantitative, one-group pretest-posttest design with 39 students enrolled in the Learning Planning course. Data were collected with a GPC instrument covering six dimensions, namely Green Pedagogical Awareness, Green Instructional Design, Sustainable Resource Management, Green Teaching Implementation, Green Assessment Literacy, and Reflective Green Pedagogical Transformation, and analyzed using Normalized Gain (N-Gain) to measure the size of the competency change after the intervention. The average GPC score rose from 63.59 in the pretest to 90.47 in the posttest, yielding an N-Gain of 0.738, in the high category. Among the six dimensions, Green Teaching Implementation recorded the highest increase and Green Assessment Literacy the lowest, though both remained in the high category. These results suggest that CE-PjBL can build sustainability-oriented pedagogical competence through authentic learning experiences that embed Circular Economy principles in project-based activities, and point to its potential as an instructional approach for preparing vocational teachers able to support the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development and sustainability-oriented learning in vocational education.