Abstract
This study, titled “Exploring Cinematic Engagement: A Participatory Action Research Investigation on the Role of Cinema on Civil Engineering Students’ Academic Performance,” explores the pedagogical potential of cinema within civil engineering education. Although research on multimedia and visual learning in higher education is well established, limited scholarly attention has been given to cinema as a narrative and interpretive medium in technical disciplines, particularly in relation to students’ learning processes associated with academic performance. This study addresses this gap by exploring how cinematic engagement supports conceptual understanding, engagement, and learning-related performance in civil engineering contexts.
Cinema is distinguished from other visual media in this study due to its narrative structure, emotional resonance, and capacity to represent complex spatial, structural, and social dimensions of the built environment. These characteristics allow abstract civil engineering concepts to be contextualised through storytelling, symbolism, and visualised scenarios, supporting reflective and interpretive learning rather than purely instructional delivery.
Anchored in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) framework, the study adopts an iterative process of film viewing, facilitated discussion, reflection, and analysis. While the research design was initiated by the researcher, students participated actively through dialogue and reflection, contributing to the evolving focus of discussions and interpretive meaning-making. The theoretical framework integrates Interactionism Theory and Reception Theory to examine how learning emerges through social interaction and individual decoding of cinematic texts.
Three films, Archiculture, The Architect, and Dark City were purposively selected for their relevance to civil engineering. Data were generated through focus group discussions, reflective writing, and observational notes, and analysed thematically using ATLAS.ti. The findings suggest that cinematic engagement supports learning processes associated with academic performance, including enhanced conceptual understanding, sustained engagement, and collaborative meaning-making.