Assessment and formative impact of entrepreneurial project-based learning in technical-vocational education: the "Small dreams, big purposes" case study

Abstract

This academic article rigorously analyzes the conception, execution, strategic restructuring, and pedagogical impact of the Technical-Vocational Education (TVE) project titled "Little Dreams, Big Purposes: Transforming Ideas into Business," implemented at the Instituto Politécnico Parroquial Santa Ana (Educational District 15-02) during the 2025-2026 academic year. The central problem addressed was the structural gap in the TVE curriculum, which is characterized by high technical specialization aimed at dependent employment, but offers limited experiential learning opportunities to foster entrepreneurial spirit, self-management, and multidisciplinary skills transfer. Grounded in Project-Based Learning (PBL) and Cooperative Learning methodologies, the project originally envisioned an eight-week intervention to train sixth-grade students in business ideation, financial structuring, legal formalization, and commercialization.

However, operational constraints—primarily overlap with the Workplace Training period (Formación en Centros de Trabajo - FCT) and the institutional cancellation of the School Entrepreneurship Fair—necessitated an adaptive methodological restructuring. The intervention was compressed into three weeks, focusing on a sample of fifteen (15) students from the Information and Communications Technology family (Application Development and Administration specialty). Utilizing a mixed-methods concurrent triangulation design, technical learning outcomes and managerial competencies were evaluated via the TCD Directorial Competencies Assessment, performance rubrics, and observation checklists. Results revealed significant growth in students' ability to calculate costs, determine pricing strategies, and execute applied web development (realized through the full production of the '360° Integral by Aportiza' corporate web platform on Hostinger), while simultaneously highlighting critical baseline deficits in soft skills such as adaptability, teamwork, and personal development. The study concludes that pedagogical flexibility and internal authentic assessment effectively secure the transfer of technical competencies to real-world productive scenarios, even under tight operational and temporal constraints.