The reflective assessment on the acquisition of life value in customer education as a character building dimension

Formal education plays a big role in the construction and development of students’ competence and skill. A survey on the fashion engineering education in Indonesia found that most students had not appropriately applied the competence and skill they learned. Many of them did not say anything despite experiencing loss, were reluctant to ask for exchange or compensation, littered the product’s waste, and had no interest in using do-it-yourself (DIY) skills to make their own products. Therefore, this study is aimed at depicting the importance of learning the Consumer Education materials, the application of living values in the Consumer Education materials, and the effectiveness of consumer living values on students’ character-building. In this survey-based study, the ex post facto approach was used in order to evaluate the results of Consumer Education learning through reflective assessment sheet. The research population was 123 students of Fashion Engineering Education Study Program in higher education institutions in Yogyakarta Province who had passed the Consumer Education course in the odd semester in Indonesia in 2017. The sample was established through the stratified proportional random sampling technique, while the descriptive statistical analysis was applied to the findings of reflective assessment. The results show the students agree that learning Consumer Education course is imperative for day-to-day life and the Consumer Education materials are found to be effective in consumers’ character-building. This study has not internalized of the values through advice, example, discussion, role playing, and participation in the activities of consumption events around daily life. Further studies are needed for developing a relevant curriculum, training in designing content, strategies, instruments, and evaluation of learning.