Enhancing Integrative Intelligence Through ESQK Based Creative Dance Education: A Classroom Action Research in Junior Secondary School

Abstract Arts education in secondary schools is frequently characterized by imitation-based instruction that fragments cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains, thereby constraining both teacher pedagogical reasoning and students’ integrative development. This study investigates how engagement with an integrative intelligence framework (ESQK), synthesizing Intellectual (IQ), Emotional (EQ), Spiritual (SQ), and Kinesthetic (KK) dimensions, mediated a teacher’s pedagogical transformation within creative dance education. Conducted in a Grade VII classroom (n = 26) at a junior secondary school in Indonesia, the research employed Classroom Action Research across three iterative cycles over six months. Analytical attention centered on shifts in teacher reasoning, instructional design, and classroom interaction from teacher-directed imitation toward learner centered, integrative, and reflective practice. Student integrative intelligence was assessed across four domains using structured observation rubrics and pre-/post-test measures. Results demonstrated significant growth across all intelligence dimensions (pre-test M = 1.49; post-test M = 4.50; t = 75.25, p < .05), with progressive improvement across cycles in IQ, EQ, SQ, and KK. Beyond documenting student gains, the findings illuminate how sustained practitioner inquiry can reorganize teachers’ epistemic orientations in embodied subject domains. The study therefore contributes to teacher education scholarship by theorizing structured action research as a professional learning mechanism that reshapes pedagogical reasoning and advances an integrative model of embodied teacher development.