Determinants of practical skills in biology teacher education: Unpacking the hierarchical roles of communication, technology, and collaboration

The development of practical skills remains a fundamental objective in biology education, yet the extent to which 21st-century competencies influence students’ laboratory performance has received limited empirical attention. This study aimed to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how communication skills, technology integration, and collaboration competence predict the development of practical skills among biology education students in Indonesia. Specifically, it examined whether these competencies operate independently or form a hierarchical structure in which some serve as enabling foundations for others. Employing a quantitative explanatory design using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), data were collected from 214 students enrolled in a biology teacher education program to assess both direct and indirect relationships among the targeted competencies. The results revealed that communication skills significantly predicted both collaboration competence (β = 0.286, p = .002) and practical skills (β = 0.220, p = .036), indicating that effective communication serves as a pivotal mechanism for improving laboratory learning outcomes. In contrast, technology integration and collaboration competence, while positively associated with practical skills, did not produce significant direct effects, implying that their pedagogical impact depends on contextual and interactional quality within laboratory settings. The findings extend existing frameworks of 21st-century learning by proposing a hierarchical competence model in which communication acts as a mediator linking technological and collaborative dimensions to practical performance. Pedagogically, the study highlights the necessity of integrating structured communication tasks, meaningful technology use, and inquiry-based collaborative projects into laboratory instruction to foster deeper engagement and skill mastery. Although limited by its single-institution and cross-sectional design, this research contributes theoretical insights and practical implications for curriculum design and teacher training, emphasizing how interrelated competencies can nurture authentic and sustainable laboratory learning experiences in biology education.