From classroom projects to business ideas: Indonesian vocational college students' entrepreneurial skills

Ira Mutiaraningrum, Sri Wuli Fitriati, Issy Yuliasri and Mursid Saleh
Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia

This study presents a cutting-edge topic in vocational education in Indonesia. Entrepreneurship education has experienced a resurgence in popularity since the compulsory implementation of project-based learning in Indonesian vocational education in 2022. The curriculum was designed to equip students with workplace skills including entrepreneurial skills. Our study explores how project-based learning can be directed to support students' entrepreneurial skills in business courses in English. Involving vocational college students, this study employed a questionnaire, interviews, and reflective journals for data collection. Our findings highlight the merits of project-based learning for accounting students' entrepreneurial skills and technology utilisation. After the projects, students possess knowledge of entrepreneurship, identify business opportunities, intend to start a business, and become entrepreneurs in the future. This study paves the way for the implementation of projects to improve students' entrepreneurial skills in vocational colleges in Indonesia. It suggests that entrepreneurial education should not be confined solely to financial courses. Instead, it can be effectively disseminated and integrated into diverse academic disciplines.
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Authors: Ms Ira Mutiaraningrum is an English lecturer in Politeknik Negeri Sambas, Indonesia. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at Universitas Negeri Semarang Indonesia. Her research interests are mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), multimodal learning, and English for specific purposes (ESP). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2273-5203 Email: ira.mutiaraningrum@gmail.com Dr Sri Wuli Fitriati (corresponding author) is a professor at the English Language Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia. Her research interests include discourse studies in English language teaching, academic writing, and qualitative research approaches. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6405-1371 Email: sriwuli.fitriati@mail.unnes.ac.id Dr Issy Yuliasri is a professor in the English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia. Her research interests cover translation and English language teaching. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2575-8307 Email: issy.yuliasri@mail.unnes.ac.id Dr Mursid Saleh is a professor in the English Education Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia. His research interest is English language education. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4049-5322 Email: mursids@hotmail.com Please cite as: Mutiaraningrum, I., Fitriati, S. W., Yuliasri, I. & Saleh, M. (2024). From classroom projects to business ideas: Indonesian vocational college students' entrepreneurial skills. Issues in Educational Research, 34(2), 608-628. http://www.iier.org.au/iier34/mutiaraningrum.pdf