Leveraging Smart Home Training Kits as an Innovative Educational Tool to Foster Higher-Order Thinking Skills

This study aims to establish the impact of employing Smart Home Training Kits as a new approach to developing Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) in vocational education. Using a quasi-experimental design, the study involved two groups of vocational students: supporting them by an experimental group applying Smart Home Training Kits and a control group using conventional methods of instruction. Standard pre-tests and post-tests were administered among the students to evaluate the enhancement in the level of higher-order thinking skills, for aspects of critical thinking, problem-solving solving, and creativity. The findings also showed a work improvement in the experimental group compared to the group control group. The experimental group of students who were trained using the Smart Home Training Kits performed better when it came to the analysis, evaluation, and Synthesis of possible solutions regarding smart homes. Also, a number of the activity kits characterized the technical thing being taught in a detailed way that allowed the students to gain a more realistic understanding of the principles at work. The findings of this paper suggest that Smart Home Training Kits are one of the ways through which Higher-Order Thinking Skills can be effectively taught within the technical education training regime while closing the gap between theory and practical. This indicates that the assimilation of these kits in curricula could help the effective development of critical thinking and innovation at the expense of students to face the current world workplace challenges.