Preliminary Needs Analysis for an Inclusive Vocational Curriculum Based on Women’s Roles and Industrial Partnerships

Abstract

An inclusive vocational curriculum requires connecting technical competence with gender responsiveness, disability access, sustainability, and authentic workplace learning, yet women’s social roles and industrial partnerships have rarely been converted into measurable curriculum elements. This study positions women’s roles not as a demographic variable but as a curriculum-generating source, and it reports a preliminary needs analysis as the first stage of a design-based research (DBR) agenda at a public polytechnic in Indonesia. A small-scale mixed-methods survey was administered to 20 stakeholders: five curriculum managers, four lecturers, six students, three education support staff, and two external partners. Likert-scale responses were analyzed descriptively and grouped into seven constructs, and open-ended responses were analyzed thematically. The strongest enabling conditions were external partners’ overall readiness (M = 4.38), the availability of project-based learning spaces reported by lecturers (M = 4.75), and perceived classroom safety (M = 4.75). The largest perceived gaps concerned disability and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) integration (managers’ construct M = 2.30), gender analysis in curriculum review (M = 2.60), representation of women’s contributions (M = 2.60), and partner involvement in instruction (lecturers’ M = 2.50). Because the data are perceptual, descriptive, and drawn from a single site, the findings provide preliminary evidence that gender analysis, UDL, SDG-oriented project-based learning, and living-lab partnerships could be embedded in learning outcomes, lesson plans, rubrics, and monitoring indicators, a design hypothesis to be tested in the co-design phase.