SDG-Driven entrepreneurship through technology solutions in higher education enhanced by problem-based learning: An active learning approach in a smart classroom environment

Abstract

This article describes a problem-based learning (PBL) intervention enhanced by a smart classroom environment, which supported online interactions and class activities. The academic experience was centered on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Multidisciplinary teams of first-year students worked with private companies on briefs explicitly mapped to the SDGs, where instruction combined coaching sessions, peer feedback, and short videos that scaffolded problem analysis, value proposition design, business-model development, and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) prototyping. Once the student teams completed the activity, a qualitative survey using the Bipolar Laddering (BLA) tool was administered to analyze the suitability of the PBL methodology for the activity. BLA elicits respondent-generated positive and negative poles and associated justifications through open questions; unlike structured questionnaires, it does not condition answers and foregrounds the students’ own categories of meaning. Findings are reported as observed patterns across teams and briefs rather than as claims of impact. The analysis attends to the role of technological scaffolds for first-year university students. The contribution of this research is twofold: (1) providing a replicable course design that situates sustainability and the SDGs in a real-world context, positioning early-stage undergraduates to practice design thinking and entrepreneurial action within an active learning approach; and (2) preserving students’ voices through the BLA tool in an activity that links PBL implementation to SDG-oriented outcomes.