Enhancing Student Engagement and Motivation for Sustainable Education: The Role of Internship and Institutional Support

This research aims to study the impact of experiential learning and skill empowerment and community engagement and institutional support systems on student engagement and motivation and sustainable education in Saudi Arabian higher education institutions. The research uses Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with Partial Least Squares (PLS) as its quantitative methodology to study the relationships between experiential learning, skill empowerment, institutional support systems, and sustainable education. The proposed theoretical model was evaluated through a survey distributed to participants who were conveniently sampled from Saudi Arabian higher education institutions. The research shows that experiential learning together with skill development and community engagement boosts student motivation and supports sustainable education in Saudi Arabia. The study further reveals that institutional support systems have a weak moderating effect because their implementation and perception require improvement to effectively support sustainability. The main limitations are the use of self-reported data which may be influenced by response biases and the focus on higher education only which limits the generalizability of the findings to other educational levels. The research indicates that experiential learning activities including internships, community projects, and skill empowerment programs should be integrated into education to boost student involvement and motivation toward sustainability. The research applies the established theories of Kolb’s Experiential Learning, Human Capital, and Social Learning to Saudi Arabia’s educational context to show how they can be adapted to promote sustainable education through experiential learning, skill development, and community engagement. This study bridges critical research gaps by elucidating the nuanced moderating role of institutional support systems—an underexplored factor—and addressing the methodological limitations associated with a reliance on self-reported data, thereby significantly advancing the understanding of their influence on student engagement and sustainable education within diverse academic and cultural contexts.