Civic education occupies a strategic position in higher education because universities are expected to produce graduates who are not only academically competent but also ethically responsible, socially responsive, and prepared for democratic participation. In the Indonesian context, Pancasila is not a peripheral enrichment topic but a foundational reference point for higher education and student development. The higher education curriculum is expected to support intellectual development, noble character, and practical capability, while Pancasila remains part of the compulsory curriculum at the tertiary level and a reference for ideological development in student affairs ( Republic of Indonesia, 2012; Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia, 2018). However, formal policy recognition does not by itself resolve the pedagogical problem of how civic values are learned meaningfully in contemporary university classrooms.

That pedagogical problem has become sharper for Generation Z learners. This cohort has grown up in media-rich, always-connected, and highly interactive environments, but digital familiarity does not automatically translate into deep engagement, self-regulation, or critical judgment ( Aagaard, 2019; Dontre, 2021; Ng, 2012; Twenge, 2019). Educational technology research consistently warns against treating technological exposure as equivalent to educational readiness. Students who are comfortable with devices may still struggle with distraction, fragmented attention, weak task persistence, and uneven digital literacy when learning environments are poorly structured or pedagogically passive ( Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Henrie et al., 2015; Schindler et al., 2017; Sun & Rueda, 2012). For civic education, such weaknesses matter because the subject aims to bridge moral understanding and public action rather than merely transmit declarative knowledge.

A second problem concerns the mismatch between the instructional form and the learner’s expectations. Generation Z students tend to respond more positively to multimodal, collaborative, and feedback-rich learning environments than to static text-heavy resources ( Bond & Bedenlier, 2019; Bond et al., 2020; Martin & Bolliger, 2018; Ng, 2012). However, civic education in many higher education settings remains dominated by lecture-based delivery, slide decks, and digital files that reproduce conventional pedagogy without redesigning interaction. This matters because studies of online and blended learning repeatedly show that digital delivery alone does not guarantee engagement; what matters is the pedagogical architecture of the learning environment, including task design, interaction structure, feedback loops, and opportunities for self-regulated participation ( Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Carini et al., 2006; Henrie et al., 2015; Martin & Bolliger, 2018).

There is also a more specific theoretical gap. The literature on Pancasila and civic education establishes the normative importance of value formation and the continuing debate around the institutionalization of Pancasila education in Indonesia ( Hastangka & Ediyono, 2023). A separate body of literature on digital learning explains how engagement, multimodality, feedback, and collaboration support learning in technology-mediated environments ( Bond et al., 2020; Mayer, 2009; Schindler et al., 2017). However, these conversations are rarely integrated into a design-oriented explanation of how civic values can be internalized in digital settings. As a result, the field often oscillates between two insufficient positions: treating civic education as content transmission on the one hand, or treating digital innovation as self-evidently beneficial on the other.

International evidence across five continents points in the same general direction while also revealing context-specific emphases that sharpen the rationale for the present study. In North America, research on online engagement and civic learning shows that sustained participation depends on meaningful interaction, visible relevance, and participatory opportunities rather than content exposure alone ( Bowyer & Kahne, 2020; Kahne et al., 2016; Martin & Bolliger, 2018). In Europe, scholarship from Denmark, Germany, and wider higher education contexts similarly shows that digital environments can widen participation yet still produce distraction, shallow engagement, or weak civic framing when pedagogy is underdesigned ( Aagaard, 2019; Bond & Bedenlier, 2019; Helm et al., 2024; Vajen et al., 2023).

In Asia, evidence from South Korea and Hong Kong indicates that pre-class design, service-learning, and guided participation are decisive for deeper learning and longer-term civic engagement ( Chan & Lo, 2024; Lee & Choi, 2019; Lin et al., 2025). In Oceania, Australian and New Zealand scholarship emphasizes that technology becomes educationally meaningful only when it supports self-regulation and a productive educational interface ( Broadbent & Poon, 2015; Kahu & Nelson, 2018). Evidence from South America and Africa adds a further warning: Latin American higher education research shows that engagement in online learning depends as much on pedagogical quality as on connectivity ( Salas-Pilco et al., 2022), Chilean evidence reports uneven behavioural, cognitive, and affective engagement alongside lecturer-side implementation difficulties ( Pedraja-Rejas et al., 2023), Brazilian work links active online learning with gains in critical thinking ( Rossi et al., 2021), Ghanaian evidence connects digital competence with digital citizenship in higher education ( Arkorful et al., 2024), and South African scholarship demonstrates that digital shifts may reproduce inequality unless they are designed around inclusion and care ( Czerniewicz et al., 2020). Together with broader systematic reviews of digital competence and technology-based engagement ( Balalle, 2024; Zhao et al., 2021), this body of research suggests that the central question is not whether civic learning should become digital, but how digital design can be made pedagogically and civically consequential.

This study addresses that gap by positioning interactive civic e-modules as a pedagogical response to an observable mismatch among civic goals, student engagement mechanisms, and students’ digital learning preferences. Its theoretical contribution is not a claim that technology automatically improves civic learning. Rather, it advances an integrated framework in which civic value internalization in digital environments depends on four linked conditions: multimodal clarity, participatory structure, feedback for self-regulation, and civic authenticity. The study, therefore, reframes interactive e-module design as a problem of civic pedagogy rather than only a matter of media choice.

Accordingly, the study investigates three research questions. First, what character and engagement patterns emerge in relation to responsibility, discipline, cooperation ( gotong royong), and critical thinking disposition? Second, how do students and lecturers perceive the pedagogical limitations of current civic education materials and practices? Third, what design principles should inform an interactive civic e-module that is educationally meaningful, technologically appropriate, and aligned with the civic purposes of Pancasila Education?

The findings suggest that the core problem is not simply that students prefer more attractive media. The deeper issue is a pedagogical misalignment between the civic purposes of the course and the learning architecture through which those purposes are pursued. This pattern resonates with recent evidence from several regions. In Oceania, Webster (2024) and Getenet et al. (2024) show that digital citizenship and online engagement depend on more than technological access; they require critical literacy, confidence, and structured participation. In Europe, Godsk and Møller (2024), De Bruijn-Smolders and Prinsen (2024), and Vajen et al. (2023) similarly show that educational technology can widen participation yet still produce shallow engagement or thin civic framing when interactivity is weakly organized. In Asia, Gu et al. (2023), Chan and Lo (2024), Kong and Lin (2023), Prasetiyo et al. (2024), and Lin et al. (2025) likewise demonstrate that digital citizenship, service-learning, and self-regulated participation depend on carefully designed environments rather than mere platform adoption. Evidence from Africa and Latin America adds an inclusion-centered caution: Ghanaian studies connect digital competence and networking agency to digital citizenship ( Arkorful et al., 2024; Opoku et al., 2025), while Latin American and Chilean syntheses continue to show uneven behavioral, cognitive, and affective engagement in higher education online learning ( Salas-Pilco et al., 2022; Pedraja-Rejas et al., 2023). Recent reviews reach a similar conclusion: digital tools matter far less when learning is not scaffolded by active pedagogy, feedback, collaboration, and intentional engagement structures ( Balalle, 2024; Johar et al., 2023; Zhao et al., 2021).

Read against that wider literature, the present study makes three contributions. First, it identifies pedagogical mismatch as an explanatory construct linking static delivery, passive engagement, and underdeveloped civic dispositions in Pancasila Education. Second, it extends student-engagement research by showing that responsibility, discipline, and cooperation (gotong royong) are not only outcomes to be measured after instruction but practices rehearsed through the design of instruction itself. Third, it sharpens digital citizenship scholarship by connecting value internalization to concrete design features—multimodality, collaboration, formative feedback, and progress visibility—within a value-based, non-Western civic curriculum. The theoretical contribution of the study, then, does not rest on a claim that digitalization is inherently beneficial. It lies in specifying the pedagogical conditions under which an interactive civic e-module can plausibly serve civic formation.

The qualitative data strengthen this argument. Students were not simply asking for more entertaining materials. They wanted clearer explanations, richer media pathways, more active participation, and visible feedback. That distinction matters because it suggests that the problem is not superficial boredom, but the absence of an instructional structure through which civic values can be enacted. It also explains why lecturers’ caution should not be reduced to simple resistance to innovation. Recent comparative work shows that educators often recognize the participatory promise of digitalization while still needing stronger conceptual frameworks for digital citizenship, collaborative learning, and ethically grounded online engagement ( Vajen et al., 2023; Helm et al., 2024; Chan & Ng, 2024). In that sense, the present study supports a design agenda that preserves conceptual rigor while changing the social form through which civic learning is experienced.

These findings also matter because citizenship now unfolds in digitally mediated public spheres. Students are increasingly expected to evaluate information critically, communicate responsibly, and collaborate across hybrid online-offline settings ( Chen et al., 2021; Ali et al., 2023; Webster, 2024; Prasetiyo et al., 2024). Related research on online global and digital citizenship further indicates that digital environments can deepen dialogic, intercultural, and civic learning when they are structured around reciprocity, reflection, and meaningful exchange rather than mere content transmission ( Helm et al., 2024; Gu et al., 2023; Opoku et al., 2025). A civic course that remains tied to static delivery, therefore, risks reproducing the very gap it seeks to close: students may learn the vocabulary of civic values while remaining underprepared to practice those values in the communicative settings where contemporary citizenship is enacted. For Pancasila Education, value internalization must therefore be linked to deliberation, collaboration, ethical judgment, and critical evaluation of public issues, not only to doctrinal recall.

Four design implications follow. First, interactive civic e-modules should provide multimodal clarity through carefully coordinated text, audio, video, cases, and visual explanation. Second, they should create participatory structures through peer discussion, collaborative tasks, and scenario-based civic problem solving so that students practice cooperation (gotong royong) and civic dialogue as part of learning itself. Third, they should support self-regulation through progress indicators, low-stakes formative checks, feedback loops, and prompts for reflection. Fourth, they should preserve civic authenticity by linking module activities to real social issues, ethical dilemmas, and digitally mediated public participation. Recent evidence on gamification, collaborative learning, blended engagement, and self-regulation suggests that these features are most effective when they are integrated into a coherent pedagogical ecosystem rather than implemented as isolated tools ( Li et al., 2024; Mushtaq et al., 2025; Tedla & Chen, 2025; Han, 2025; Huang & Lee-Post, 2025). This design logic is more defensible than a generic call for innovation because it ties each feature to a clear civic and pedagogical purpose.

The study also has practical implications for lecturer development and institutional support. If interactive civic learning is to be implemented seriously, lecturers will need support in translating abstract civic content into activities that remain conceptually rigorous while becoming more participatory and feedback-rich. Institutions, in turn, should connect civic module development to wider agendas of digital literacy, ethical communication, and collaborative inquiry. Without that support, digital redesign is likely to remain fragmented and tool-driven rather than pedagogically coherent.

This study shows that the challenge of civic education in higher education lies not only in the transmission of civic knowledge but also in the alignment of instructional design with the learning ecology of Generation Z. The findings indicate areas of concern in responsibility, discipline, and cooperation ( gotong royong), mixed engagement with current digital materials, and a strong student preference for multimodal and interactive learning environments. They also show that lecturers and students share the goal of meaningful civic learning, even though they differ in how that learning should be structured.

The principal contribution of the study is a theory-informed and empirically grounded framework for redesigning an interactive civic e-module. The framework argues that participatory value internalization in Pancasila Education depends on four design conditions: multimodal clarity, structured collaboration, formative feedback, and progress visibility. Further research is needed to validate this design framework across broader contexts and to test whether interactive civic e-modules improve both learning engagement and civic character formation.

Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Riau, Indonesia (approval number 2765/UN19.5.1.1.5/AK/2025; approved on 10 December 2025). Participation was voluntary. Before questionnaire completion and interviews, participants received information about the study purpose, procedures, confidentiality protections, and their right to withdraw without penalty. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants, and all responses were handled confidentially.