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Author ORCID Identifier

Zehui Zhan: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6936-1977

Abstract

The traditional cultures around the world not only symbolize the spirit and soul of different countries, but also provide the most essential resources for education. This study examined the effect of reverse engineering pedagogy (REP) and forward project pedagogy (FPP) on students’ cultural heritage literacy and creativity in a cultural-oriented STEAM course (C-STEAM). A total of 128 undergraduate students from a major university in China participated in a paper sculpture C-STEAM project, and were randomly divided into two groups: the treatment group (with 64 students) which adopted REP, and the control group (with 64 students) which adopted FPP. Results indicated that both FPP and REP promoted students’ cultural heritage literacy and creativity. Although students’ risk-taking and curiosity in the FPP group outperformed those in the REP group, students in the REP group achieved significantly better learning performance and higher levels of cultural understanding than those in the FPP group. In particular, the REP group wisely established a close relationship between cultural heritage and creativity by presenting complete cultural works in advance. This discovery has important research significance and practical value, by enlightening us to reflect deeply on the effect of REP when implementing the C-STEAM curriculum, and to identify the potential linkage between cultural inheritance and creativity.

First Page

154

Last Page

175

Ethics Approval

Yes

Declaration Statement

Data Availability Statement

The data used in this study are available upon request. Please contact the corresponding author or the data repository to request access to the data.

Funding Statement

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation in China (62277018; 62237001), Ministry of Education in China Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (22YJC880106), the Major Project of Social Science in South China Normal University (ZDPY2208), the Degree and graduate education Reform research project in Guangdong (2023JGXM046).

Conflict Of Interest Disclosure The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Ethics Approval Statement

This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of our institution. The IRB reviewed and approved the study protocol, including the informed consent process, data collection methods, and ethical considerations.

Participant Consent Statement

Before participating in this study, each participant was provided with a detailed information sheet that explained the purpose, methods, potential risks, and benefits of the study.

After reading the information sheet, each participant was asked to provide written consent by signing a consent form. The consent form explicitly stated that participation was voluntary, that the participant could withdraw from the study at any time, and that the data would be used only for the purposes of the study and would be anonymized if published.

By signing the consent form, the participants agreed to participate in the study and to allow the research team to collect, analyze, and use their data for the purposes of the study. The research team will ensure that the participants' privacy is protected and that their data will be used only for the purposes of this study. Permission to Reproduce Material from Other Sources

The original sources have been acknowledged and cited in the manuscript as appropriate.

Clinical Trial Registration Statement

N/A

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