Place-Based Community Learning Using Mak Mao and Pon Yang Kham Beef Cattle Integrated with Digital Projects to Enhance Digital Innovator Competencies of Upper Secondary Students

Abstract

This study aimed to develop place-based community learning activities integrating local wisdom related to Mak Mao and Pon Yang Kham beef cattle with digital projects for upper secondary students, in order to enhance their digital innovator competencies and to examine supporting factors and obstacles in implementing the activities. The activities were conducted over a six-week period, totaling 12 hours, through the integration of Place-Based Learning, Project-Based Learning, and the Design Thinking process with digital technologies. The sample consisted of 30 upper secondary students selected through purposive sampling. The findings indicated that the developed activities were appropriate to both student and community contexts, and effectively integrated local knowledge of indigenous plants and livestock into the development of digital innovations addressing real community problems in a systematic manner. As a result, students demonstrated statistically significant improvement across all five dimensions of digital innovator competencies (p < .001). The overall competency score increased from 2.43 to 4.24 out of 5, reflecting a very large effect size (Cohen's d = 3.49). The three dimensions showing the greatest improvement were social and community responsibility (d = 3.21), collaboration and communication (d = 3.04), and design thinking (d = 2.89), respectively. Key supporting factors included strong community collaboration, the relevance of local wisdom to student learning, and institutional support from the school, while major obstacles involved time constraints and limitations in technological infrastructure. Overall, the results suggest that place-based community learning integrated with digital projects is a highly effective approach for enhancing digital innovator competencies among upper secondary students.