Service learning in Indonesia: developing undergraduate students' leadership during COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose This phenomenological case study reports how 16 participating students built their leadership skill through a community-based service-learning project as a part of their undergraduate program at an Islamic university in Indonesia. Education for sustainability framework promoted by Warwick (2016) was employed to portray students' leadership development and explore their lived experience while doing service-learning project in their neighborhood. Design/methodology/approach Phenomenological case study was employed to portray how the participants engaged in projects that empower the community during their service amidst the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. They were interviewed using online platforms such as WhatsApp and Zoom Meeting. To triangulate the data, the photos elicited during their field study posted in social media were also presented as visual data. The interview data and photo elicitation were transcribed, interpreted using interpretative phenomenological analysis and thematically analyzed. Findings The findings of the study showcase that the student participants transformed their sense of agency as learners into leaders. The service-learning program has also become a springboard for them to engage in the community service and build strategy to fill the local community's need, especially amid the pandemic of COVID-19. Research limitations/implications There are two limitations in regards to this study. First, this study only examined data garnered from a small number of participants that could not be used to overgeneralize the results of the study. Second, the participants were interviewed upon the completion of their service-learning project. It did not investigate the sustainability of the projects that the participants had carried out after the service-learning program ended. Originality/value While ample previous studies investigated how service-learning program that involved undergraduate students were enacted during COVID-19 pandemic, the present study specifically looked into how participants exercise their leadership skill upon the implementation of service-learning from education for sustainability framework promoted by Warwick (2016).