Enhancing Creative Thinking Skills and Student Achievement: An Innovative Approach through Integrating Project-Based Learning in STEAM and Self-Efficacy

Students are required to be able to think creatively to support optimal student achievement. However, empirical evidence suggests that creative thinking skills and student achievement still need improvement and must be addressed. This study compares the project learning model STEAM to direct learning STEAM as a learning step and academic self-efficacy to encourage creative thinking skills and learning achievement. A quasi-experimental pretest-post-test non-equivalent control group design was used in the research's approach. One hundred fifty students from Bali's higher-degree Informatics Engineering study program attended the study. MANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The outcomes demonstrated that 1) There is a significant difference between the students who learn using the project STEAM and Direct-STEAM, where the group of students who learn with the project STEAM is superior. 2) Differences in academic self-efficacy affect students' creative thinking skills and learning accomplishment, with students with high academic self-efficacy having higher learning achievement and creative thinking skills than students with low academic self-efficacy. 3) the model's interaction with academic self-efficacy and project STEAM does not influence students' creative thinking skills and learning achievement. Regarding the research findings, the project-STEAM learning model can be applied to increase learning outcomes and abilities in computer architecture materials.