Using the Action Research Process to Design Entrepreneurship Education at Cenderawasih University

In 2013, as part of US AID's Higher Education Leadership and Management initiative in Indonesia, Universitas Cenderawasih began an action research project to address the under-employment of UNCEN graduates through purposeful entrepreneurship education. Although entrepreneurship education had been introduced previously, it had not integrated theory and practice appropriate to Papua. Core principles of the action research process (ARP) were used to develop and implement a locally effective curriculum for students enrolled in UNCEN's Faculty of Economics. A central commitment underlying the project was to design a curriculum that could address social inequalities in Papua, specifically the significant under-representation of Papuan native peoples in the entrepreneurship sector. Through a mixed methods approach that used demographic, attitudinal and outcome data as well as observational, interview and focus group data, the ARP team designed an experientially-based learning module, documented implementation of the pilot learning module, evaluated its effectiveness, and developed proposals for improvement and institutionalization. Based on outcomes that showed persistent gender and ethnic differences, future iterations of UNCEN's entrepreneurship curriculum will adopt a culturally responsive pedagogy (Gay, 2010, Ladson-Billings, 1995) that addresses the disparities in cultural and social capital shown to be significant to entrepreneurship education.