One of the tasks in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is gender equality. Gender equality in education includes fields that are predominantly carried out by men. This study aims to test whether the training method designed using materials typically dominated by men can improve the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) of female students in vocational high schools in semi-urban areas in Central Java province. The method used is a quantitative quasi-experimental design. The research participants consisted of 518 female vocational high school students. All participants completed a questionnaire measuring their ZPD in relation to the training materials. Subsequently, 32 female students were randomly selected from the 518 participants to join the experimental group. Thus, the training involved two groups of female students: There are 32 students in the experimental group and 486 students in the control group. The experimental group gained high-engagement training through hands-on experience with the laser engraver process. Meanwhile, the control group underwent training by watching videos on the laser engraver process. Based on this study, it was found that ZPD scores of the experimental group increased by M= -31.66 points, while the control group only experienced a ZPD increase of M= -20.93 points. Thus, it can be concluded that direct practice using a laser engraver is more effective in improving the zone of proximal development for female vocational students compared to watching videos about laser engraver usage. Hands-on experience resulted in a high level of student engagement. This study also found that female students can have high engagement when using equipment. Research with other tools that are more male-oriented could be conducted to further strengthen the findings of this study. © 2025 Jap Tji Beng et al.; published by UIKTEN. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License.
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