Teaching Sustainable Digital Transformation: A Blockchain and Green Innovation Framework for Engineering Education
Main article
Abstract
Engineering programmes worldwide face a twin imperative: preparing graduates to steer digital transformation while embedding environmental responsibility across every technical decision. Most current curricula still treat these mandates as separate tracks, leaving graduates digitally fluent but environmentally naive, or sustainability-aware but technologically tentative. This study proposes an integrated pedagogical framework that uses blockchain-enabled credentialing as a structural mechanism for teaching green innovation as a system-level engineering competency. Drawing on resource orchestration theory, complex systems thinking, and the competency-based education paradigm, we synthesise evidence from a PRISMA-guided systematic review of 94 peer-reviewed studies (2019–2026) and a four-year design-based intervention implemented across three Malaysian engineering faculties (N = 312 students, nine instructors). The framework is organised into five interdependent layers — instructional data, identity and evidence, infrastructure, pedagogical logic, and learner experience — and supports a longitudinal four-year competency progression anchored in verifiable on-chain attestations. Pre/post assessment shows statistically significant gains across six competency dimensions, with the largest effect on systems thinking (d = 1.94) and SDG alignment (d = 1.74). A between-cohort analysis demonstrates that the full framework outperforms traditional lecture, blockchain-only, and sustainability-only conditions (composite score 6.64 vs. 5.12, 5.71 and 5.93 respectively). We identify four boundary conditions that govern implementation success: faculty digital capacity, institutional trust, green learning orientation, and instructional task complexity. A five-phase adoption roadmap translates the framework into actionable institutional guidance. The work contributes a reproducible blueprint for programmes aiming to reconcile digital transformation with environmental responsibility, and extends competency-based education research by demonstrating that blockchain credentialing is not only a record-keeping technology but a pedagogical instrument for teaching systems-level green innovation.
