Activating Diverse Intelligence Profiles in Islamic Jurisprudence Education: A Qualitative Study of Problem-Solving Pedagogy in Indonesian Madrasah
Keywords:
Strategic Leadership, Digital Transformation, Islamic Boarding School, Value-Based LeadershipAbstract
This study investigates the pedagogical implementation of Multiple Intelligences (MI)-based problem-solving strategies within the context of Fiqh instruction for Grade VII students at MTs Ma’arif Rakit Banjarnegara, an Islamic Junior High School in Indonesia. The study is motivated by a persistent epistemological gap in Islamic pedagogy, where conventional Fiqh instruction continues to prioritize textual memorization and deductive knowledge transmission over student engagement, critical reasoning, and contextual moral reflection. Such instructional practices have demonstrably constrained students’ capacity to relate Islamic jurisprudence to contemporary ethical and social realities. Employing a qualitative descriptive design informed by an interpretivist epistemology, data were generated through in-depth interviews, structured classroom observations, and systematic document analysis. The findings reveal that MI-based problem-solving fundamentally transforms the Fiqh learning process by repositioning students as active interpreters of religious meaning rather than passive recipients of juridical knowledge. Learning was organized across four analytically distinct yet interrelated stages—problem identification, argument analysis, practical application, and reflective evaluation—each meaningfully aligned with specific intelligence domains, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, kinesthetic, and interpersonal intelligences. Thematic coding and triangulated data validation consistently indicated enhanced patterns of student participation, dialogical reasoning, and emergent spiritual self-awareness across diverse learning contexts. Analytically, the study advances an interpretive constructivist model of Islamic pedagogy, demonstrating how the principled integration of MI theory and problem-solving approaches can reconfigure epistemic practices in Fiqh education. This model contributes substantively to scholarship on how differentiated intelligence frameworks can operationalize reflective, value-oriented learning in ways that are consonant with the transformative aims of Indonesia’s Merdeka Curriculum.
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