DEVELOPING AN ETHNOPEDAGOGY-BASED TEXTBOOK FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD CREATIVITY AND GIFTEDNESS: A CONTEXTUAL LEARNING APPROACH

Abstract

Early childhood creativity and giftedness education in Indonesia continues to face
challenges due to the limited availability of culturally responsive instructional materials that
integrate local wisdom into meaningful learning experiences. This limitation reduces opportunities
for prospective early childhood teachers to develop children's creativity while preserving local
cultural values. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and evaluate an ethnopedagogy-based
textbook integrating the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) approach for the Early
Childhood Creativity and Giftedness course. A Research and Development (R&D) design was
employed through the stages of needs analysis, textbook design, expert validation, revision, and
classroom implementation. The textbook quality was evaluated using content validity, media
validity, and teacher practicality assessments. At the same time, its effectiveness was examined
using a one-group pretest-posttest design, measuring children's fine motor performance as an
indicator of creativity-related learning outcomes. The results showed that the textbook achieved
91.6% content validity, 89.0% media validity, and 92.0% teacher practicality, all of which were
classified as very feasible. Furthermore, classroom implementation significantly improved
children's fine motor performance, with mean scores increasing from 67.00 to 80.75 (p < .05).
These findings suggest that integrating Bengkulu's indigenous traditions, local arts, folktales, and
kain besurek motifs into CTL-based learning creates more contextual and culturally meaningful
learning experiences that enhance creativity while strengthening children's cultural identity. The
study demonstrates that the developed textbook is valid, practical, and effective, and provides
empirical evidence that ethnopedagogy can serve as a sustainable framework for the development
of culturally responsive instructional materials in early childhood creativity and giftedness
education.