Education + Training New horizons in entrepreneurship: from teacher-led to student-centered learning Sarah Robinson Helle Neergaard Lene Tanggaard Norris Krueger Article information: To cite this document: Sarah Robinson Helle Neergaard Lene Tanggaard Norris Krueger, (2016),"New horizons in entrepreneurship: from teacherled to student-centered learning", Education + Training, Vol. 58 Iss 7/8 pp. - Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/et-03-2016-0048 Downloaded on: 30 June 2016, At: 02:50 (PT) References: this document contains references to 0 other documents. To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:132724 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. *Related content and download information correct at time of download.
NEW HORIZONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION: FROM TEACHER-LED TO STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING Abstract Purpose The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion about how we move from teacher-led to more student-centred models of learning. In order to achieve this objective, this paper combines educational psychology with perspectives from entrepreneurship education research to make explicit educators tacit assumptions in order to understand how these assumptions guide teaching. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Design/Methodology/Approach Using ethnographic analysis, the paper reports data from the continuous development and implementation of a single course over a period of ten years bringing in the educator s and the students perspectives on their achievements and course content. Findings We find that it is sometimes advantageous to invoke and combine different learning theories and approaches in order to promote entrepreneurial awareness and mindset. It is also necessary to move away from entrepreneurship education as being teacher-led to being more student-centred and focused on experiential and existential lifelong learning practices. Practical Implications Practically, we make suggestions for the design and delivery of a course that demonstrates how four diverse learning theories can be combined to consolidate entrepreneurial learning in students invoking experiential and curiosity based learning strategies. Originality/Value There are very few examples of concrete course designs that have been researched longitudinally in-depth using ethnographic methods. Moreover, most courses focus on the post-foundation period, whereas this paper presents a course that is a primer to the entrepreneurial process and exclusively centred on the pre-foundation phase. Rather than building on a single perspective, it combines a range of theories and approaches to create interplay and progression. Keywords Entrepreneurship education, Psychology, Pedagogy, Teacher-led, Student-centered Type of paper Empirical 1
NEW HORIZONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION: FROM TEACHER-LED TO STUDENT-CENTRED LEARNING INTRODUCTION Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Learning, understood as little more than remembering, has been conceptualized and operationalized broadly in higher education as placing and retrieving knowledge from an inner mental apparatus. Through this perspective, educational institutions are perceived as impersonal learning sites concerned mainly with transmitting knowledge from educators to pupils as effectively as possible with an emphasis on reproduction rather than reflection. This approach was previously seen as more or less synonymous with learning: to say that people were educated was interchangeable with saying that they had gone to school (Lave, 2011: 19). The individual is also reduced to an anonymous body whose potential for experiencing and acting in the real world is overlooked (Holzkamp, 1995). The practical consequence is that a de-contextualised and de-subjectivized discourse about education has prevailed. Hence, students are detached from rather than attached to their knowledge through reflective practices. Given the present focus on entrepreneurship at the national level, the question becomes whether a continued implementation of traditional approaches to learning is going to be helpful for students to develop entrepreneurial awareness, mindsets, skills and competences. In entrepreneurship education research, most would agree that there are three types of courses: about, for and through (Gibb, 1987; Pittaway and Edwards, 2012). About courses typically teach theories about entrepreneurship. For involve providing tools for coping with concrete tasks of entrepreneurship. Through courses move the students through a process of enterprising behaviour and make the students do some of the actions of an entrepreneur by starting a business (fictive or real). Of these only the about matches with the traditional educational practice. According to Pittaway and Edwards (2012), it is also still the most prevalent. In their analysis of the three types of courses, they find that it is the through type that has the most potential to produce entrepreneurs, because they get students to mimic and simulate what entrepreneurs do. Therefore higher education institutions should provide more through courses. However, they fail to acknowledge that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have institutionalized structures and frameworks, which regulate how courses can be structured and teaching be performed and about and for courses are dominant because they meet the 2
requirements of what it means to be academic. Thus, if HEI educators want to implement any other type of course, they contravene what is considered required practice. It may also be easier to implement for courses because they stress the attainment of knowledge and understanding in combination with the acquisition of skills and competences. Such courses already exist in most business schools in the form of accounting, financing, marketing, strategy etc. However, about and for courses are less likely to promote entrepreneurial mindsets in students and more likely to produce knowledge acquisition. This paper is thus motivated by a concern about how it is possible for HEIs to combine being a good student with becoming entrepreneurial individuals. How educators conceptualize the entrepreneur and entrepreneurship also influences how they design courses and educate students. Therefore, the mental prototypes of what construe effective/appropriate pedagogy also matter deeply (Krueger et al, 2011) and as Pittaway and Cope (2007) point out, we need to begin to evaluate our own pedagogies. Hence, we suggest that creating an understanding of how entrepreneurship education links up with the various models of learning will enhance our understanding of what works and does not work and will assist us in designing better courses for the future. We thus respond to the invitation extended by Jones and Matlay (2011) to contribute to the discussion about the complexity and heterogeneity of entrepreneurship education. The aim of this article is thus to demonstrate how we can move from teacher-led to more student-centred models of learning. We achieve this aim by analysing the learning theories underlying the current approaches (about, for and through) and illustrating how this combination may be achieved in practice. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows: we commence with a comparative discussion of four approaches from psychology with similar perspectives in entrepreneurship education: behaviourism, social learning, situated learning and existential learning to help identify the gaps in entrepreneurship education research. This is followed by a conceptualisation of existing entrepreneurship education research and an examination of the underlying learning theories. After a short presentation of the methodology applied, we then link these learning theories to entrepreneurship in the classroom. We provide and discuss examples of strategies for integrating theory with practice in the classroom. In conclusion, we address the implications and perspectives for educators and students. PRIOR WORK 3
Entrepreneurship research has borrowed extensively from psychology when trying to understand how intentions are formed and to measure outcomes of enterprise education (Krueger, 2007). However, very often educators/researchers develop new curricula intuitively without explicitly addressing the psychological or pedagogical foundation. Indeed, there are widely different perspectives on answering the question: what is it you need to learn to become a good entrepreneur? Further, the effect of entrepreneurship education programmes may depend on the delivery method chosen and this choice invariably reflects the educator s embedded beliefs about what works (Abaho et al 2015). In the following, we spell out these differences and relate them to the perspective of learning to become an entrepreneur. However, according to Jones and Colwill (2013) the choice of teaching style and method should relate to the nature of the learners. Recent systematic reviews, e.g. Pittaway and Cope (2007); Fayolle and Gailly (2013) of the literature on entrepreneurship education show that whilst there are many papers published on how entrepreneurs learn in the context of running business ventures, the literature does not draw sufficiently on psychology and other educational theory. With some exceptions, it is equally light on empirical contributions, particularly in formal learning settings, even though there is much in the basics of educational psychology that offer considerable value to those seeking to design and deliver entrepreneurial learning (see e.g Penaluna et al 2015). Typically, the main distinction made is been between an objectivist and a constructivist approach to learning (Löbler, 2006). Simply put, the former focuses on knowledge content (facts, skills etc.), while the latter focuses on how knowledge is structured: what we know versus how we know it. It is surprising that no research suggests that an objectivist approach to education is superior nevertheless it remains dominant in educational systems globally. As evidenced in the following, this is probably due to the doctrine of behaviourism and various forms of cognitive behaviourism within educational psychology, which continues to inform educational models and practices. Behaviourism The doctrine of behaviourism is that only what can be measured and observed can serve as the foundation for a scientific study whilst ideas, mental constructs or emotions are counted as explanatory factors concerning human action. Indeed, behaviourism is often criticized for embracing a mechanistic view of the learning process, and the individual is seen as more or less passive. Behaviourism was developed as a model of learning in the age of industrialism and modern mass education. Within the typical model of mass education, students learn that 4
at a lecture, there is one person who speaks, whilst all others are quiet. Students are seated in long rows behind each other. This learning environment encourages reproduction rather than reflection and the preferred examination forms used to test students knowledge include e.g. multiple-choice methods. The view of the student is that of a person who has to be extrinsically motivated, e.g. through grades. However, behaviorism does not in itself support a stand and deliver model of teaching as it is more precisely a program for designing learning in highly controlled circumstances. Nevertheless, this program fitted the need for functional and effective mass education as it developed in the 20 th century (Cooper, 1993). Behaviourism and cognitive behaviourism thus fit the learning about entrepreneurship representing the traditional way of controlling learning in tight circumstances in the classroom. From this perspective, entrepreneurship education must therefore establish the right conditions for students to reproduce the appropriate behaviour. Learning about entrepreneurship can be achieved in three ways: the first is simply to introduce students to the theory about entrepreneurs. Indeed, there still seems to be a very strong behaviouristic streak in many entrepreneurship classes, especially at the beginner level or in larger classes. However, if students merely learn to reproduce the knowledge gained from the theory without reflecting on insight gained, it is questionable what kind of learning will occur (Marton, 1981). The second is to make students mimic entrepreneurial behaviour for example through making them establish a make-believe entrepreneurial business. This may be real in the sense that they have to go through the motions, but fake in the sense that the environment in which it is undertaken is a safe school setting, and they cannot really fail. Moreover, particularly introductory classes, still use the lecture-homework-objective testing mode. Consider for example the single most frequently used exercise in entrepreneurship education: learning how to write a business plan. While seeming experiential on the surface, all too often the student learns a linear, relatively mechanical process. The important point here is that even where classroom activities seem visibly hands on and learning by doing, it is surprising rare for them to be truly experiential. Although numerous entrepreneurship modules still tend invoke rather mechanical models of teaching, in many schools these have been replaced by more experiential approaches that are inspired by e.g. social learning theory and existentialist learning. Social learning theory Social learning theory, for its part, questions the central doctrine of behaviourism. It takes into account social aspects to a much higher degree than the early behaviourism. For example, 5
reinforcement is also conceived of as vicarious. In other words, we can learn not only from experiencing the results of our own actions but also by observing those of others. Social learning theorist such as Miller and Dollard (1941/1967) and later Bandura (1977) also conceive learning as the processes by which culture is transferred from generation to generation and, while developing an interest in imitation, they endeavor to combine sociology and psychology. To them imitation is effective when successful individuals, through their actions, serve as role models, and they become attractive because their behaviour is reinforced and all their needs seem to be fulfilled. In the mid-1970s it became clear that there was a gap within the behavioural theoretical framework. According to Bandura (1977) this is related to the fact that behaviourism does not take into account the individual s self-belief and its role in human wellbeing and the ability to handle one s own life (Bandura, 1977). One aspect, which Bandura stresses, in relation to the educational system, is thus the need to take the students belief in their own abilities into account when solving concrete tasks. Whilst behaviourism focused on reinforcement, according to Bandura (1997), the most important aspect is that individuals experience some kind of mastery of specific practices and not least that this mastery matters to other people. In relation to the role of educators, the educator cannot be solely a knowledge transmitter, but must stand out as a personal example. Within entrepreneurship education, self-efficacy has become extremely popular: it is conceived of as easy to measure and reasonably valid. Bandura (1997) would say that we need to understand the mental models that self-efficacy influences: if we change the cognitive maps of what is feasible and desirable, then we will also change the model of what students perceive as an opportunity and especially whether or not they will act on that opportunity. Mastery experiences involve participating in activities that bring about a more competitive, risk-taking, self-confident and/or ambitious attitude and therefore such activities have a positive influence on self-efficacy (Neergaard and Krueger, 2012), but students may take away the wrong lessons from a given experience (the half-empty versus the half-full glass). Thus, reliable and realistic role models are also essential. The implication from social learning theory is that the educator needs to be a role model, and therefore has to be an educator-cumentrepreneur. Particularly, in American HEIs, entrepreneurs are brought into the classroom to teach entrepreneurship classes. The challenge is then twofold: on the one hand, the entrepreneur may not have the expertise in the theory, on the other hand, if the educator poses as a role model this might raise questions of legitimacy. Elsewhere, the emphasis has been on bringing in real-life entrepreneurs to talk to the class to share their experiences first hand with students, a practice also referred to as master class. Another practice is to make students find 6
their own entrepreneurial role model to interview about his or her experiences and then report back to class. The idea behind the latter is that students will be more likely to choose role models that they can relate to and who will therefore be more realistic to them. A recent trend builds implicitly on the social learning model by providing a rapid succession of mastery experiences wherein students receive feedback from peers and experts alike. Recently, social learning theory has been supplemented with various forms of situated learning theory. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Situated learning As presented by Lave & Wenger (1991), the theory of situated learning questions our great belief in the merits of formalised education. It is also an approach, which has evidenced the lack of student perspectives within learning theory and practice. Situated learning or learning in social practice can be approached from at least two angles. On the one hand, it is an analytical perspective, which questions the perspective from which educational design is constructed, e.g. ignoring the learner perspective (Haug, 2009). On the other hand, it has been embraced as a rather specific learning theory where learning is seen as situated in a specific environment and as involving apprenticeships that build on the idea of scaffolding : the apprentice starts with the most peripheral assignments, which provide a position from which s/he can observe which tools are necessary for which assignments, and thus slowly builds an idea of the structuration and meaning of the community of practice s/he has joined (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The apprentice advances from observing to participating in increasingly more difficult assignments until s/he becomes fully skilled. Thus, the focus is on how and what the student learns through participation and that the student from feeling like a novice increasingly feels like an expert. To our knowledge few entrepreneurship programs or classes make use of the more specific models of situated learning. Ordinarily apprenticeships are typically only found in e.g. craft or service sectors. However, students may choose to take an internship period in an entrepreneurial venture, which one could argue constitutes a kind of situated learning. Further, many business schools today offer opportunities for enterprising activity in the form of student growth houses where students may retain a mentor and receive advice from real entrepreneurs (Lackéus et al, 2013). However, it is common that such initiatives are extracurricular and ungraded. Situated learning may also take place at innovation camps or startup weekends in which students experience the intense pressures of the full entrepreneurial process over a compressed period of time and may receive mentoring. Indeed, the mentor- 7
mentee relationship is a method that assists the mentee in reflecting on his/her behaviour in specific and critical situations. What this paper shares with situated learning as presented by Lave & Wenger (1991) and Tanggaard & Nielsen (2011) is the emphasis on the need to actually study what students experience and learn while being part of entrepreneurship programs, a perspective also embraced by existential learning. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Existential or significant learning In an existential learning perspective, learning needs to be significant and meaningful for the individual learner in order to be transformative (Mezirow, 2000). This a perspective at the other end of the scale to that concerned with accumulation of facts. Indeed, existential learning points to the issue that learning permeates all parts of an individual s life. Meaningful, genuine and significant learning will moreover change an individual s personality, values and ultimately future life (Frick, 1987). The basic assumption within humanistic psychology, and the philosophical frame surrounding existential learning, is that we often mix up the concepts of learning and teaching. Usually, when people can do something new after being instructed or having been part of teaching, we conclude that this individual has been part of a learning process (Colaizzi, 1998). However, an individual who remembers or recalls something, for example in an examination situation, might not have learned something of particular value for his/her later life. The basic premise within existential learning is therefore that we also need to understand and examine whether the process of learning is meaningful for the ongoing and future existence of the person. Hence, we need to make distinctions between reproduction of existing knowledge and the kind of learning, which becomes personally significant, namely reflective learning (Mezirow, 2000). Learning in this latter and more genuine sense takes place when people experience radical breaks or intensified situations in their lives. These situations result in the individual starting to understand him- or herself in a new way. They restructure their connectivity to the world, so to speak, and this is exactly what is necessary if students are going to learn to reinterpret themselves as entrepreneurs. Thus, existential challenges assist the individual in reinterpreting certain aspects of his/her own reality (Marton, 1981). One could therefore argue that what students should experience in the entrepreneurial classroom should be so radically different from what they have experienced so far in the educational system that they simply have to reinterpret their reality. Such deep experiential and transformative learning is aimed at changing the learners mindset 8
at a correspondingly deep level, changing scripts, maps and mental prototypes, which might be referred to as imprinting the learner (Mathias et al, 2015). What is more authentic than learning how to pursue one s passion? Existential learning is implicit in much entrepreneurship education but entrepreneurship education may benefit from a move from implicit to explicit. Hence, to address this from an existential learning perspective the challenge is threefold; first to design a module or a programme, which invokes such critical learning experiences; second to motivate students to draw on existing, and maybe dormant, critical learning experiences; and finally to manage the process. Before proceeding to address these challenges, in Table 1, we briefly summarize the four approaches accounted for above in relation to entrepreneurship education. Insert Table 1 here The why concerns the tacit assumptions linked to the pedagogical and psychological choices for teaching in a certain manner; the what addresses the content of that which is being taught; the where defines the place, which is most fertile for learning to take place; the when involves the period/s of time that are most expedient and where individuals are most susceptible for learning to take place, and finally the how is the manner in which the learning is being communicated. RESEARCH DESIGN AND SETTING The insights presented here reports data from the continuous development and implementation of a single course over a period of ten years bringing in the educator s and the students perspectives on their achievements and course content. It is important to note that this course focuses exclusively on the pre-idea phase of the entrepreneurial process, which according to Krueger and Welpe (2014) is an under-researched subject. In order to achieve a different level of reflection, an educational anthropologist was invited to observe all the teaching in two iterations of the module and carry out reflective interviews with the educator at the end of each class. In total more than sixty hours of observation and fifteen hours of interviews, which were afterwards transcribed. The close observations of the teaching created 9
a unique opportunity for the educator to engage in discussions with someone who was able to explicitly probe into and expand on the observations made in the classroom. The following provides an ethnographic account, which is substantive, processual and contextualized. This involves a reflective investigation making interpretations (meaning making) of the functions and meanings of human actions in a certain context following an individual or group of individuals around and being with them and understanding them in situ. Ethnography thus entails an encounter with another an immersion in another world in order to understand how this other world works. Thus, as the ethnographer stepping into the classroom making observations of what goes on and listening to the encounters and observing how relationships are built, having conversations with the educator, a deeper multifaceted understanding of the subjects world is achieved. The ethnographer uses the experiences of this encounter to produce narratives and analyse and reflect on what can be learned (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007). The findings can therefore be transferred (analogous generalization) in terms of a continuous categorization of which types of behaviour are appropriate in which type of context, thus recognizing the complexity of the real world (Neergaard 2007). Analysis The underlying philosophy of the module was that in order to influence students to develop the mind-set of an entrepreneur (note: not to become an entrepreneur), it was important to stimulate reflection by the students in order to question their unreflected attitudes/modes of behaviour. Fundamentally, the educator s conviction was that (i) traditional modules educated students to become corporate employees and not entrepreneurs and (ii) that the traditional university lecture promoted reproduction and not reflection. The educator set out to surprise the students from the outset, to do the unexpected and to ask the unexpected in order to open their minds to a new world. As the account will show this was more difficult than imagined. Three distinct elements make up the module: first theory and presentation, secondly interventions that took place in the class environment, and thirdly the home assignments and learning logs. Although the format of each tutorial follows a similar structure, each tutorial varies to some extent dependent on its content. Each meeting in the course usually commenced with a description of the individual elements of the tutorial taking as the starting point a de-briefing on the home assignment. The de-briefing involved a discussion between the educator and students about the goals of the assignment and reflections on the experience of completing it. What did they learn? What did they struggle with? What were the areas that 10
challenged them? The educator usually discussed with the students; their reflections, their understanding of the process and their learning from the assignment. The educator then provided feedback on the learning logs, which were a weekly requirement and are explained in more detail below. Each week one group of students was assigned the task of relating the theory to the prescribed text. This was usually the second part of the teaching. Following the group s presentation the educator then presented the theory for the next week illustrating the new theory through a number of practical examples. Finally, the students worked together in a group exercise (intervention) that required active involvement. The class concluded with a de-briefing and a short explanation of the next week s home assignment. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Theory Rather than building on a single perspective the course combined a range of theories. The theoretical themes were chosen to reflect a process that starts with developing individual awareness of own entrepreneurial potential. It moves to idea exploration originating from the individual s everyday practice, and ends with understanding and unfolding this idea in context. The process brings the students to the individual-opportunity nexus without actually ever articulating this. Thus, there was no designated textbook but a collection of required readings limited to two articles per class. The module incorporates theory on (i) identity (ii) storytelling and narrative, (iii) effectuation-causation, (iv) disharmonies and anomalies, (v) bricolage, (vi) opportunity mapping and (vii) context. Appendix One provides a brief argument for the inclusion of the various theoretical perspectives. The whole process aims at giving genesis to ideas that originate from within the individual, which are therefore unique. The educator introduces ideas about mind-set and identity through exposure to particular activities. In addition storytelling, creativity tools are used to further fine-tune ideas and effectuation was used to make them act. Apart from the required readings, Tom Szarky s (2009) account of Revolution in a Bottle: How Terracycle is redefining Green Business was used as an illustration of the unfolding of an entrepreneurial process. This is used as a mirror against which it was possible to discuss the theory. Theory remains a foundational element in the teaching and the use of Szarky s book is a tool to not only present new theory but also to develop an understanding of theory in practice and relate it to real life entrepreneurial experiences. The educator intersperses the theoretical interpretation with a number of personal experiences and stories that encourage the students to extrapolate the theory to their own experience. This is crucial as some of the home 11
assignments hinge on the students ability to extrapolate experiences from their own life that will help them grow an entrepreneurial identity. Each theoretical framework is also accompanied by an intervention. These are explained in the next section. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Interventions Interventions are exercises or experiments illustrative of the theory that require active participation by the students in the class environment, assisting students to reflect on and remember the theory better than if they had just heard or read about it (Penaluna et al 2015). Initially, the educator intuitively introduced these exercises and it was only later that she came to understand that according to educational theory, if you have to undertake a dramatic presentation, simulate the real thing or carry out the real thing you recall it better (Dale 1969). Therefore embodying the theory through the use of carefully planned interventions is crucial to a deep understanding of the theory. Interventions are usually implemented as the final element of each module to engage students actively with the teaching. Appendix Two provides an overview of the interventions corresponding with the theoretical themes. Home assignments Home assignments assist students in reflecting on their learning and to reinforce the experience obtained through the in-class exercises and experiments. Home assignments are not graded but participation in the final exam is dependent on the completion of six assignments along with weekly learning logs. An increasing number of group assignments have been used in order to promote collaboration among the students, given that entrepreneurial activities often happen in teams. Further, the intention is to promote a forum for discussion that will encourage reflection on the assignments and internalize learning to a greater degree. Home assignments take two forms: individual assignments and group assignments. For the individual assignments students have to e.g. write an essay on a critical and significant event that has influenced their life dramatically. These were sent directly to the educator as many of the essays are of a personal nature. The following debriefing involved a discussion about the individual learning that they had taken away from that event. This is then extrapolated to entrepreneurial behaviour to illustrate that entrepreneurship is not for the chosen few but that all individuals have the capacity to be entrepreneurial. 12
Group assignments involve e.g. constructing a product from waste material (bricolage) and obtaining a price for it or creating buy-in by staging a flashmob. The purpose of the former is to activate students ability to see potential where others may only see waste and to construct a saleable product. The purpose of the latter is to push student boundaries to utilise the talent of at least one person in the group and to secure buy-in from outsiders e.g. through Facebook or passers-by and to nudge their risk adversity. Appendix Three provides a list of assignments corresponding with the theoretical themes: Home assignments are discussed using a method called feed-forward (Nielsen & Tanggaard 2011:43). Feed-forward is designed to assist students in developing the capability to evaluate their own effort with a focus on the process, which is documented through a learning log. (The learning logs are described in detail in the next section). Feed-forward is managed by the educator through a set of explicit questions that include the cognitive, affective and conative levels. Students are asked to discuss these first in their groups and then in the forum of the classroom. Learning Logs The ideology behind the use of the learning logs is to stimulate the students to reflect on the teaching and to encourage an understanding of what is required to change and develop individual learning. The students are asked firstly to describe what happened in the class, then to reflect on what they thought and felt, to reflect on what they learned about themselves and about others, and finally to explain what they would do differently, or would like to change as a result of the learning experience. The educator spends some time with the students discussing what could be learned from using the learning logs as a personal learning journal. There are always a few who are able to articulate their learning in a variety of ways, however, a larger group remains at the descriptive level and seems unable to move towards any deep reflection. Based on this experience, the educator designed explicit questions that directly relates to what happens during the class and in carrying out home assignments. Through this form of prompting the students gradually become better able to articulate their learning journey. Indeed, it is through the learning logs that the educator was able to understand the effect of the different elements of her teaching on the group as individuals. Exam and grading The final and for many students most important element of a course is the exam for which they are graded. The exam is a natural extension of the work carried out in a course. In this 13
particular course, it links to the home assignments and the learning logs. In the take-home 48- hour exam the students are asked to imagine themselves in five years time being invited back to the entrepreneurial classroom to talk about the development of their project. The aim is for the students to analyse their learning and to become aware of the potential for realistic development of self and resources. The students understand that the assignments and learning logs are tools, which they will be able to use in their development and analysis of their project. Using the assignments and learning logs they explore what they have learned, relate it back to theory, analyse their own learning and mastery of skills in examining the development of their project. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Findings The course invokes all the educational learning theories outlined earlier. What is interesting to note is that these can co-exist and that in combination they seem to enhance learning. This is in line with the findings presented in Penaluna et al (2015), and we propose it is because the approach takes into consideration that individuals have preferred learning styles in different situations. In the following, the account is analysed according to the four learning theories presented. The learning cycle model (figure 1) illustrated below, was chosen as a basis for promoting reflection among the students by firstly focusing on their identity as students and secondly reflecting on the links between their experiences and competences and how these affect their future career desires rather than simple reproduction of theories on how to become an entrepreneur. Insert Figure 1 about here Behavioural elements As can be seen from the above account, the theory lecture is still anchored in the behaviourist approach. The focus is on the input-output relation of educator transmission (stimulation) and learner internalization (response). Its intention is to stimulate the students to think of themselves in entrepreneurial terms within a rather controlled teaching situation as well as becoming an impetus for certain kinds of learning. However, the theory presented in the classroom is perceived as a tool that consolidates students ability to act entrepreneurially by 14
immediately discussing the theory against the textbook. This also develops analytical skills to deepen understanding of how theory relates to practices which acts as a role model thus enhancing subliminal learning (Penaluna et al 2015). The whole module also contains a certain element of make-believe and although students are specifically prevented from going beyond the idea development, they have to carry out certain actions that include an entrepreneurial component. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Social learning aspects The experiences invoked through exercises and participating in activities that bring about a more competitive, risk-taking, self-reliant and/or ambitious attitude are clear elements of social learning. These activities have a definite positive influence on self-efficacy. Further, this approach provides role models in whom the students can mirror themselves. These role models encompass real-life entrepreneurs, collaborative learning with their peers (which is important if you are going to be an entrepreneur) and interactions with the educator. It is evident that the educator is using herself as a role model by giving examples of experiences she has had and by making the students reflect. Through this, the students learn vicariously that problems encountered in everyday life can be responded to by e.g. inventing new products, recycling or up-cycling old materials (Bandura, 1997). Similarly, the entrepreneur brought into the classroom also functions as a potential role model. Furthermore, the teaching seeks to promote the students self-efficacy by making them believe in their own agency in life (e.g. the achievement of doing a flashmob gave some of the students a high ) and promoting collaborative work, something, which the formal individual examination tends to undermine. Situated learning In essence the whole module is designed around the apprenticeship model: letting the students take one step at a time towards unfolding their idea, using illustrative interventions and home assignments that simulate what entrepreneurs do but without a predetermined entrepreneurial setting. Furthermore, the module clearly allows for construction of student identities, a departure from what the students have learned about themselves so far. Within situated learning, a basic idea is that identity is constituted in the nexus of the individual person and the horizon of resources and barriers for participation within social practices (Lave & Wenger 1991). Identity refers to either the collective ( we are students ) and/or personal experience of being situated in particular social practices in and beyond the educational 15
setting. In a higher education setting such identity construction very often concerns the coming into being of a preconceived student identity. However, the module presented here requires that students reflect upon the diverse possibilities and barriers encountered in order to imagine themselves in a range of possible career trajectories, among which is entrepreneurship. Indeed, student learning within an educational setting and beyond is not only an epistemological project concerning knowledge acquisition and skills formation, but also requires that identities come into being, that is: changing knowledgeable skills is constituted as part of life more broadly (Lave 2011:65). Analytically this means that learning is never only a matter of engagement in cognitive tasks but also a process of becoming (someone else). In the above narrative, this point is developed into a set of concrete teaching elements, which legitimates the identity aspect of learning. When students are in a formal learning organization, physically placed as a student in an accredited course (classroom), you are limited in reaching the real world and practice within it. Therefore, we need to be able to bring our students into different arenas that allow them to learn, act and practice, reflect and then bring that experience back to the classroom (Lackéus 2016), so that they start to think more broadly about their own identities. By combining these four approaches in one course, we enable our students to have this experience. Existential learning processes Existential learning processes are central in entrepreneurial learning particularly when dealing with students who have little or no experience with how they can be entrepreneurial. In order to provide an anchor for them, it is necessary to help them become aware of those experiences in the past that have shaped them and given them routines and ways of acting that can be invoked as entrepreneurial. As described previously, we are all shaped by our experiences. What students do not realize is how they can use these experiences, and it is therefore the task of the educator to enhance this awareness. So how can we create existential learning processes? There are two existential learning elements in the module: the first element lies in the individual assignment about a critical event (symbolic growth experience) that has influenced them, and a reflection on how this has influenced them. The second lies in carrying out the flashmob or rather reflecting on the flashmob. Both of these assignments create an existential conflict for many of the students, (i) because they have to share some deeply emotional experience with others, and (ii) because they have to deal with fear and need for control. Because entrepreneurs encounter difficulties all the time, we hook into student past 16
experiences to draw on how they have acted in the face of difficulties to enable them to understand that they have the ability to overcome difficulties because they have already done it before. This reflection creates an awareness of how they have changed as a result of dealing with those difficulties. Further, we create frustrations so that they learn to deal with lack of control and cope with potential fear of failure. Control is related to knowing what is going to happen next, but entrepreneurs often work in unpredictable environments that are inherently uncontrollable. Thus, students need to know how they react in unpredictable situations and what opportunities they have to act differently, and learn to understand and overcome their fear. They are often deeply frustrated and find it extremely difficult. However, it is when you are frustrated, that you learn the most. Learning in this genuine sense takes place when people experience radical breaks, frustrations or extreme situations in their lives (Frick 1987). These situations mean that the individual starts understanding him- or herself in a different way, which is exactly what entrepreneurship educators try to invoke in students moving from an interpretation of themselves as students to a reinterpretation as entrepreneurs. Discussion In Béchard and Grégoire s (2005) review of entrepreneurship education literature they identified four main themes and called for scholars to develop a dual expertise in management and education issues. Our paper attempts to meet this challenge by demonstrating the integration of a research agenda with theoretical concepts, encouraging us as scholars and educators to make a rigorous alignment between what we think we do and what we do. The above account has allowed us to begin answering the question why certain learning activities work better than others. If we accept that a reinterpretation of student identity is the ultimate aim of all entrepreneurship teaching, whether invoking behaviourism, social learning, situated learning or existential learning, then as educators we have an obligation to assist the students in the best possible way to achieve this. Institutions therefore need to make room for more experimental approaches to learning and teachers need to be supported, encouraged and provided with resources and space to do this. Further, according to Penaluna et al (2015: 951) there are widely different perspectives on the question: what is it you need to learn to become a good entrepreneur? These perspectives are influenced greatly by context (Jones and Matlay 2011). In fact, students in many countries are acculturized throughout their studies to the idea that they are going to work either in the private or public sector, once they graduate and are not at all focused on alternative career routes. Thus, they find it difficult to accept the entrepreneurial paradigm. We therefore 17
suggest that in such situations, courses based on existential learning need to precede courses explicitly focused on for example, learning how to complete a business plan. In this paper we have presented a particular pedagogy that has been developed for a particular course specifically for students at the pre-idea phase let s call it entrepreneurial pedagogy. The course brings together different kinds of teaching because different kinds of teaching elicit different kinds of learning. It is delivered in an experiential fashion, where first students co-create experiences, and second theory is used to consolidate the learning, which according to Penaluna et al (2015) provides a better learning experience. The paper shows that the use of interventions and home assignments with an emphasis on student activity help students reflect and reinforce each of the theories introduced. This mix of theory with activity should help students recall and remember much more of what has taken place in the class (Dale, 1969). Moreover, if we seek to move from teaching about entrepreneurship to educating students to think like an entrepreneur, then shifting away from behaviourism and its underlying assumptions is necessary. Figure 2 depicts the basic premise of how student mind-set evolves toward a more entrepreneurial mind-set as changes in deep beliefs drive changes in how knowledge is structured (Krueger, 2007; 2009). We posit that these deep beliefs may be altered through exposing students to critical developmental/symbolic growth experiences, or by triggering their recall of experiences that they have already encountered but which may have been suppressed or forgotten. By bringing these to the surface and provoking awareness, students may experience an epiphany, which enables them to use such memories actively for (entrepreneurial) identity development (Frick 1987). According to Frick (1987:413) significant learning experiences are intrinsic manifestations of the needs for development and self-actualizing potential of an individual. It is therefore necessary to stimulate and trigger the pre-conceptual, non-cognitive forces in human development and the creative self before moving on to develop a business. The data from the learning logs provide indicative evidence that they are an essential tool in evaluating and developing future initiatives in teaching entrepreneurship. It suggests that learning/reflection logs greatly enhance the learning process and help students reflect on their progress. This is a tool that once learnt can be used broadly to enhance their learning across the board. However, they must be carefully constructed so that they are calibrated to the aims and goals of each tutorial. 18
Insert Figure 2 around here Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) The educator found that for the majority of the students (17 out of 20), their analysis and development was not make-believe but in fact a realistic acknowledgement of their potential. This result clearly demonstrated that it is possible to foster entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour. In addition, we have to recognize that the concepts of mind-set and deep beliefs apply equally to educators. Differences in educators mental prototype lead to marked differences in module content and module structure. Indeed, findings from a Welsh study note that experiential and curiosity-based learning strategies are essential and that educators need to be entrepreneurial themselves, both in the design and delivery of their courses (Penaluna et al 2015:950). The insight presented in this article provides an example of how such a course can be designed and delivered. From a methodological perspective the contributions made during the observation of teaching and subsequent reflective interviews often resulted in the educator making decisions about adjusting future practices both in the short term, concerning what she would do next week, and in the long term, what would be adjusted in the coming years. In effect reflective interviewing allows educators to look deeper into their own assumptions and empowers them to further develop their exercises, classes and programs in ways that matter both to learners and the entrepreneurial community. However, entrepreneurship modules are mostly funded through the traditional channels (possibly with the exception of universities in the USA) and therefore have to adhere to the traditional rules of the educational system, which as we have argued, are still anchored in behaviouralism. These require that students have to receive grades and modules that have to include a significant theory component, which may limit, what can be done with regard to promoting entrepreneurial behaviour. If one looks at what takes place in student growth houses where grades and theory are not requirements, activities differ greatly. Here entrepreneurship is not an academic discipline, but a practical one. Hence, it may be time that university management started to realize the importance and potential of bringing such activities into the classroom and investigate ways of combining them with the academic foundation. 19
Finally, in terms of a future research agenda, while the trend toward more deeply experiential programs appears to be accelerating much remains to be done to encourage this trend (Neck and Greene 2011; Penaluna et al 2015). In particular, the notion that hands on or even practitioner involvement is sufficient warrants further investigation. Simultaneously, if we argue that these different pedagogical approaches generate different impacts, ought we not to find new ways of assessing those different impacts? Focusing on the nurturing/imprinting an entrepreneurial mindset also requires a deeper understanding on what that mindset looks like and its origin as well as identifying potential markers for that. We are seeing the first signs of what deeper beliefs are associated with expert entrepreneurial thinking but empirical research is still at early stages (Krueger, 2007; Krueger and Neergaard, 2011). However, if we are willing to invest the effort, there is much theory and powerful tools that can help us to understand the extent to which we influence student identity and mindset through entrepreneurship education in order to achieve the aims and avoid the pitfalls. Indeed, the psychological impact on students of specific interventions requires further investigation. Conclusion The insight gained from developing the course over the past ten years is that to promote entrepreneurial awareness and mindset, we need to move away from entrepreneurship education as being teacher-led to being more student-centred and focused on lifelong learning practices. We are not advocating a complete move to student-centred, but we need to involve students as co-creators of the classroom in order to promote ownership of the learning process. Thus, creating a balance between the two may be advisable, depending on what it is that we are trying to achieve with our teaching. Like Voltaire s character, who is astonished to realize that he has been speaking prose his whole life, we believe that many entrepreneurship educators may be surprised to learn that they intuitively invoke educational psychology models most of their careers without explicitly addressing their underlying pedagogical assumptions. However, what is taught and especially how it is taught reflects deep beliefs about, not just the nature of entrepreneurship, but also how it is best learned. We hope that providing educators with the opportunity for closer scrutiny of their own assumptions they will feel empowered to further develop in ways that matter to learners and to the entrepreneurial community. Most educators want to make a difference, and it is crucial that we make a positive one. Therefore, as educators it is valuable to understand the effect of one s teaching particularly because this has far-reaching impact not only on students but also on social praxis in terms of 20
fostering new, sustainable entrepreneurs. We can be the make or the break of whether students believe they have it within them to become entrepreneurs or not. Finally, entrepreneurship research has borrowed extensively from psychology when trying to measure outcomes of enterprise education. The paper shows that we may need to add methods inspired by e.g. ethnography, to understand and improve our teaching practices. Acknowledgement This research was generously sponsored by the Innovation Fund Denmark and carried out within the PACE project http://www.badm.au.dk/pace. The usual disclaimers apply. Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) References Abaho, E.; Olomi, D. R.; Urassa, G. C. 2015. Students Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy: Does the Teaching Method matter?. Education+ Training 57(8/9) 908-923. Bandura, A. 1977. Self-efficacy: Toward a Unifying Theory of Behavioural Change. Psychological Review 84: 191-215 Bandura, A. 1997. Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. NY: WH Freeman & Co. Béchard, J. & Grégoire, D. 2005. Entrepreneurship Education Research Revisited: The Case of Higher Education. Academy of Management, Learning and Education 4 (1) 22-43 Colaizzi, P. F. 1998. Læring og eksistens. (Learning and Existence) I: Hermansen, M. (red.). Fra læringens horisont en antologi. (From the Horizon of Learning an Anthology) Århus: Klim 185-213. Cooper, Peter A. (1993). Paradigm Shifts in Designed Instruction: From Behaviorism to Cognitivism to Constructivism. Educational Technology 33(5) 12-19. Dale, E. 1969. Audiovisual Methods in Teaching. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Fayolle, A. & Gailly, B. 2013. The impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial attitudes and intention: Hysteresis and persistence, Journal of Small Business Management 53(1) 75-93 Frick, W. B. 1987. The Symbolic Growth Experience: Paradigm for a Humanistic-Existential Learning Theory. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 27(4) 406-423 Gibb, A. A. 1987. Designing Effective Programmes for Encouraging the Business Start-up Process: Lessons from UK Experience. Journal of European Industrial Training 11(4) 24-32 21
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Figure 1 The Learning Cycle in a Student-centred Setting Theory Purpose Providing academic foundation Intervention seeing it done/simulating the real experience reinforces theory Intervention Purpose Reinforces theory Illustrates home assignment Theory hear and see (power point/youtube) Home assignment simulating the real experience reading theory Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Presentation Purpose Providing feed- back and feed forward Presentation in class giving a talk participating in discussion Home Assignment Purpose Providing dramatic, symbolic experience Reflecting on theory and self
Figure 2 From Novice to Expert Entrepreneurial Mind-set (based on Krueger 2007) Change in what we know (content) Student mind-set Change in how we know it (knowledge structures) Entrepreneurial mind-set Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 02:50 30 June 2016 (PT) Change in deep beliefs Critical, cumulative, and developmental experiences 1