Work ethics profile of vocational college students in Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims at describing work ethics profile of Vocational College Students in Indonesia. Work ethics is an important indicator of human resources quality that must be owned by students of Vocational College as working-age population. There are four main dimensions in work ethics, namely commitment, integrity, professional attitudes, and hard work. It is a descriptive research on self-evaluation survey. It uses Likert scale with 5 response options, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). The respondents were determined using cluster sampling and convenience sampling. They are from four vocational educational institutions based on the three regions in Indonesia; College A (representing Western Indonesia colleges), College B and C (from Middle Indonesia), and also College D (in Eastern Indonesia). This geographical perspective is used to get profile of Vocational College students’ work ethics regionally and nationally. The study concludes that there is no major difference among the self-evaluation results of work ethics in Western Indonesia, Middle Indonesia, and Eastern Indonesia (the mean scores of the four dimensions in four colleges which ranges from 3.89 to 4.54). The study concludes that integrity is in the highest rank among other dimensions. The one that takes place in the second position is commitment, except the one in College C. It is consecutively followed by being professional (except College C since its being professional is in the second place). The last is hard work. This profile signals positive support towards the demographic dividend for the development of the country.