Text Mining Analysis of Learning Experiences in a Design Thinking-Based University Entrepreneurship Course

Objectives The purpose of this study is to explore directions for improving teaching and learning in entrepreneurship education by objectively analyzing learners' cognitive structures and thought processes as experienced in a design thinking-based entrepreneurship course. This was achieved through keyword frequency and analysis of association between concepts. Methods To this end, 27 third-year students enrolled in an entrepreneurship course at University D, located in Gyeonggi Province, participated in the study. They were instructed to write reflective journals based on their 14-week course experience. The collected journals were preprocessed and analyzed using text mining techniques to investigate how students perceived and experienced the course. Analytical methods included word frequency analysis, N-gram analysis, TF-IDF, keyword network centrality analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. Through these methods, the study aimed to thematically structure and analyze students' perceptions of the course grounded in the design thinking methodology. Results The analysis revealed that learners primarily recognized idea generation, collaboration, and user-centered thinking as core learning experiences. Furthermore, students' experiences were categorized into five major thematic domains: (1) practical and theoretical learning essential to entrepreneurship, (2) creativity development, (3) user-centered problem-solving and experiential practice, (4) conceptual structuring and concrete idea realization, and (5) collaboration and critical thinking. Conclusions The findings suggest that design thinking-based entrepreneurship education is effective in expanding learners' cognitive capacities and enhancing their problem-solving competencies. This study offers significant implications for educational practice by proposing concrete pedagogical improvements, including reinforcement of creative thinking training, expanded recognition of collaborative roles, enhanced experiential learning for user empathy-based problem solving, emphasis on action-oriented education and feedback, and the broader application of text mining techniques in educational assessment.