Evaluating an Ethno-Pedagogical Intervention for Enhancing Pre-Service Teachers’ Literacy, Numeracy, and Pedagogical Competencies

Abstract

Purpose: The marginalization of indigenous cultures in formal education can limit students' acquisition of foundational skills, necessitating culturally responsive pedagogical frameworks. This study introduces and empirically evaluates the "Buku Paket Kontekstual Papua" (BPKP), an ethno-pedagogical intervention authored by Mathijn van Driel et al., designed to bridge indigenous Papuan realities with national curriculum standards, using story-based pedagogy, local games, and traditional knowledge to contextualize early childhood learning (grades 1-3). Methodology: Using a quantitative pre-experimental (one-group pretest-posttest) design without a control group, this research involved 61 undergraduate pre-service primary teachers (N=61) selected through random sampling. The study measured a dual-pillar transformation: Content Mastery (Literacy and Numeracy) and Pedagogical Readiness (Cognitive, Affective, and Psychomotor). Findings: Paired samples t-test analyses revealed that the BPKP training was associated with significant improvements across all five domains; negative Cohen's d values reflect the direction of pre-to-post change, not a decline. In Content Mastery, participants showed statistically significant but small improvements in literacy (p = .045, d = -0.263) and numeracy (p = .013, d = -0.328). The intervention also supported pedagogical readiness, yielding a large improvement in the cognitive domain (p < .001, d = -0.817) and significant gains in affective attitudes (p = .017) and psychomotor skills (p = .024). Significance: While causality cannot be definitively claimed given the research design, the findings suggest that integrating indigenous realities into educational training tools can support academic subject mastery and shape the readiness of future educators to teach in marginalized communities.