Digital multimodal vocabulary projects in Indonesian EFL higher education: Design, assessment, and students’ perceptions

Abstract

Vocabulary assessment in Indonesian EFL higher education remains predominantly focused on discrete-item tests, prioritizing individual receptive knowledge. To address limitations of such tests, this study examined collaborative, digital, multimodal vocabulary projects in a pre-service teacher class in Indonesia and explored students’ perceptions. This study is an exploratory, single-case qualitative study conducted with a class of 30 third-semester EFL teacher-education students. They collaboratively created two digitally mediated multimodal projects: a Quizizz-based vocabulary quiz set and an idiom-based conversation video. The project artefacts, rubric notes, the lecturer’s reflection notes, and semi-structured interview scripts were analyzed thematically. The study revealed that students experienced gains in creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, digital skills, and enjoyment throughout the process. However, they reported time constraints, communication challenges, and performance anxiety. Group-based digital projects were evident to make vocabulary use in context observable, and multimodal assessment was found to support vocabulary learning and learning-oriented assessment. The research contributes empirical evidence on multimodal assessment for vocabulary learning in Indonesian EFL higher education, a context that remains underrepresented in the literature. It is recommended that collaborative, multimodal task design be integrated into pre-service teacher education to scaffold digital literacy, collaboration, culturally relevant development, and contextually grounded vocabulary assessment practices.