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Pioneering Pedagogical interventions for Nurturing Entrepreneurship Mindsets through Entrepreneurship Education |
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| Paper Id :
18989 Submission Date :
2024-06-10 Acceptance Date :
2024-06-22 Publication Date :
2024-06-25
This is an open-access research paper/article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. DOI:10.5281/zenodo.12516883 For verification of this paper, please visit on
http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/shinkhlala.php#8
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| Abstract |
This paper explores innovative pedagogical interventions to nurture entrepreneurial mindsets in students through entrepreneurship education. It emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurship education in developing the skills necessary for self-employment and business initiation. Highlighting both narrow and broad perspectives, the paper discusses how pedagogical interventions help in fostering creativity, self-reliance, and can shape entrepreneurial thinkers. Various pedagogical interventions are examined, including constructivist, experiential learning, critical thinking pedagogy and place-based education. Through a review of existing literature in the form of scholarly articles and policy documents, the paper identifies effective teaching strategies that promote active learning and critical thinking, ultimately aiming to enhance entrepreneurship education and prepare students for future challenges. The major recommendations derived from the pedagogical interventions for entrepreneurship education also given. |
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| Keywords | Pedagogical Interventions, Entrepreneurship Education And Entrepreneurship Mindset. | ||||||
| Introduction | Entrepreneurship education encompasses the training required to initiate a business venture and achieve self-employment (Mahieu, 2006). This field of education can be viewed broadly or narrowly. The narrow perspective focuses on equipping individuals to identify opportunities and establish businesses, fostering an entrepreneurial mindset (Fayolle & Gailly, 2008). Conversely, the broader perspective of entrepreneurship aims to cultivate traits such as creativity, self-reliance, action orientation, and initiative, shaping individuals into entrepreneurial thinkers. Regardless of the approach, the essence of entrepreneurship lies in value creation. Entrepreneurs establish organizations that foster and generate value, whether in terms of financial gains or societal impact, while entrepreneurial individuals contribute value to the organizations, they are part of.
"Entrepreneurship mindset is the ability to sense, act, and mobilize under certain conditions (McGrath & Mac Millan,2000; Mosakowski & Earley, 2010; Korte, Karl & Smith, 2018). Teaching Entrepreneurship is not one size fits all endeavors." (Gartner & Vesper, 1994; Greene, 2004). One of the most crucial questions that comes up when discussing entrepreneurship education is how to teach it. "Teaching Entrepreneurship is a complex, process-oriented and interconnected activity" (Corbett, 2011). Teaching about entrepreneurship helps students to realize their creative ideas. Alternatively, how they can translate ideas into actions? Where to begin? What are the key areas to focus on in order to lower risk throughout planning and implementation? National Knowledge Commission (NKC) report (2008) says,” It is a professional application of knowledge, capabilities, and skills and the construction of new innovative ideas by one person or group of people by creating a business set up to seek growth and gain monetary benefits, making room for jobs and doing economic and social good”. Thus, the process of entrepreneurship can be streamlined via entrepreneurship education. However, it's equally critical that entrepreneurship education be delivered in the classroom in an efficient manner. Only then it will be meaningful and effective. Bruyat and Julien (2001) espouse a constructivist perspective on value creation, asserting that it does not occur in isolation but rather emerges from an entrepreneur's interactions with the environment. According to this view, learning and value creation are foundational aspects of entrepreneurship. This perspective has guided educational institutions in defining the objectives of entrepreneurial education, which aim to prioritize value creation for students. Entrepreneurial education promotes the development of entrepreneurial abilities by empowering students to generate value for stakeholders. Entrepreneurial education, as defined by Moberg et al. (2012), encompasses the content, methods, and activities that support the acquisition of knowledge, competencies, and experiences necessary for students to initiate and engage in entrepreneurial value creation processes. Entrepreneurial competencies include the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enhance an individual's readiness and capability to engage in entrepreneurial activities and create novel value. There are three primary approaches to entrepreneurship education, as outlined by O'Connor (2013); teaching "about" entrepreneurship, teaching "for" entrepreneurship, and teaching "through" entrepreneurship. Teaching "about" entrepreneurship focuses on imparting theoretical knowledge to provide a broad insight of the entrepreneurial process. Teaching "for" entrepreneurship is a career-focused method that provides prospective entrepreneurs with the essential knowledge and skills. Teaching "through" entrepreneurship is a process-oriented approach in which students engage in experiential learning, aligning with broader views of entrepreneurship and integrating entrepreneurial concepts into various subjects. In contrast, the "about" and "for" approaches align more closely with the narrow view of entrepreneurship (Lackeus, 2015). As today’s modern world faces challenges of unemployment which needs a forward-looking solution. In order to solve the problem of unemployment, students of new generation require a training to be taught to look outside the box and be creative and risk-takers. The National Education Policy 2020, seems to be striving for this challenge. In the Policy a special emphasis has been laid on skill development from the early years of education and along with this, the talk of giving recognition to local crafts and arts so that by establishing them on international forums, the local community and villages can also be made self-reliant. Policy recommends entrepreneurship education at school level and courses and disciplines offered by CBSE schools are specially created with this objective in mind. Encouragement of students to start their own businesses was the primary goal of entrepreneurship education at first, but this has now changed to emphasize entrepreneurship as a style of thinking (Hahn, Minola, Van Gils, & Huybrechts, 2017). A student with this kind of thinking would not only succeed in creating businesses and startups, but they would also be able to take calculated risks in any other academic or industrial setting with inventiveness and confidence. Through well planned activities, projects, and case studies, learning by doing—as opposed to traditional subject-based learning—can facilitate the development of an entrepreneurial attitude and the augmentation of self-confidence. It is necessary to switch from traditional subject-based learning to more participatory and collaborative ways in order to develop an entrepreneurial mentality. Although, these approaches and evaluation tasks associated with these approaches will be relatively new for the teachers as well students, certain kind of training is required for teachers and certain train materials should be provided by the teachers to the students. The goal of education shouldn't be to expect students to come up with a new business concept and launch it in a single semester. Thus, rather than emphasizing the products of the students, the focus should be on what the students learn. Pedagogical interventions presumed to affect entrepreneurial behaviour of a learner and through which an individual perceives and process information which may cause change in entrepreneurial behaviour. Teachers are facing the challenges regarding effective implementation of entrepreneurship education course which is new to them. Therefore, it is crucial to explore pedagogical interventions from literature for preparing students to be an entrepreneur. The present paper intends to provide insight into the pedagogical interventions needed for preparing students to be an entrepreneur. |
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| Objective of study | More
specifically, the present paper attempted to target following objectives:
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| Review of Literature | Insights into the pedagogical interventions for fostering entrepreneurial mindset Entrepreneurship mindset curriculum framework, (2019) proposed inspiring storytelling, experience-based learning and mindfulness exercises with attentive approach at work and life as chief pedagogical interventions for inculcating entrepreneurial mindset among students. This curriculum focuses on the age-appropriate learning interventions which are helpful in developing different entrepreneurial abilities such as joyfulness, confidence, risk taking, ambitious, inquisitive observer, critical thinking, opportunity seeker, effective communication, problem solving and lifelong learning. Robin Bell (2019) applied the constructivist approach to teaching in the first-year of an entrepreneurship course. The constructivist paradigm holds that students actively build their knowledge via interactions with their surroundings. The role of the teacher in the constructivist teaching is of guide on the side, who scaffold the learning of their students through constant feedback and encouragement. Based on the findings it was suggested that learning through constructivism approach offers a valuable approach of learning through experience, development of value-based projects and scaffolding for creation and refinement of novel concepts required to meet the objectives of entrepreneurship education. According to Mueller & Anderson, (2014) constructivism is only the way to construct meaning of novel information within the very complex and dynamic in perspective of entrepreneurship education. Constructivist approach is the superior approach for the development of entrepreneurial mindset of learners and highest level of approach for the development of unique qualities essential to be an entrepreneur through entrepreneurial education (Assudani, & Kilbourne, 2015; Kyro, 2015). With the experiential learning, Frederick (2007) developed an Ettape Method of Training Entrepreneurs. The approach is broken down into three phases: theory, procedure, and practice. Every phase is designed around a course that lasts for a semester. The “theory” stage consists of “Foundation of Innovation and Entrepreneurship” course. Therefore, it is abbreviated as “Entrepreneurship Theory Process Practice”. The ETTAPE method is transacted through blended learning approach using Moodle course management system. It is based on the Kolb’s model of experiential learning (Kolb, 1984) that describes four stages of learning; concrete experience, observation and reflection, forming abstract concepts and testing in new situation. The ETTAPE method first provided knowledge of starting the business venture in first stage. In the second stage, the students observe and reflect on existing venture, subsequently plan their business venture. Finally, in the third stage, the students practice their venture plan. Based on the notion of critical pedagogy, Verduijn and Berglund (2018) formulated the pedagogical interventions for entrepreneurship education. In this intervention, rather than directly teaching students about the entrepreneurship education, students are asked to critically reflect on the existing established knowledge of entrepreneurship. Through reflection, students find the loopholes or gap in the theory and practice of the entrepreneurship education. After the identification of the ambiguities, students are encouraged to deconstruct the existing knowledge of entrepreneurship education. Once the existing abstruse knowledge of entrepreneurship education is deconstructed, students are motivated to create new dimensions of entrepreneurship education that are true to their reality. In this way, students construct their own knowledge of the entrepreneurship education. Laurie Lane-Zucker and Dr. John Elder (1990) suggested a new pedagogical approach known as ‘Place Based Education’ which emphasizes the link between the physical location of students and teachers and the learning process. Instead, focusing on classroom instruction, it highlights the experiences of place in teaching and learning. It is kind of pedagogical approach that is organized in a community and uses their resources for learning. The approach adopts hand-on learning as their prime teaching strategy. This approach aims to build relationship between school and communities and help students witness their role in society. It also offers an opportunity to the students to take part in social and regional issues of the communities. Based on the idea of place-based pedagogy, Larty (2021) designed a Place-based pedagogical intervention for entrepreneurship education. He proposed three approaches for teaching entrepreneurship to build on the idea of Place-Based pedagogy- 1. The first is “articulation and observing places” that includes teaching strategies which makes students observe their community or surrounding locality. Activities are planned to engage students in learning about a local entrepreneurial landscape, like a talk session with local entrepreneurs or customers. 2. The second approach is “student-led place-making” which involves identification of the local community issues which they would like to work on. Once the student has identified the problem, they will be asked to design a solution for that problem. 3. The third approach is ‘business and community-led place-making’, in this the students are asked to work with the local businessman or community groups to understand their local need/problems and provide entrepreneurial solutions. |
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| Methodology | The present paper aims to probe into the various pedagogical interventions for entrepreneurship education and is entirely based on the secondary data. The relevant information was collected from scholarly articles available on online databases such as Google Scholar, Tylor & Francis, Research Gate, Academia etc. |
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| Analysis | Insights for Teaching and Learning The above cited pedagogical interventions are based on the prominent pedagogical approaches; constructivist approach, socio-cultural approach, experiential learning approach, place-based pedagogy, critical pedagogy approach. Each approach gives meaningful insights for designing pedagogy for teaching entrepreneurship education.
A crucial component of the constructivist approach is to the constant provision of the scaffold to support the knowledge construction. As in the case of the creation of value-based project, the faculty members constantly guided the student in their development of the value-based business plan. Similarly, the elective entrepreneurship course designed by Bell (2021) also adopted a practical approach for teaching construction is the self-endured activity. During the course, the students are asked to create a value-based project either for community. The students were involved in the number of activities which helped them in constructing entrepreneurial competencies required for the development of the successful venture. The experiential learning theory narrates that learning happens through a cyclic process of active experimentation and reflection. The ETTAPE method of preparing students for entrepreneurship education adopted the experiential learning theory, where the students are involved in three successive stages; theory, process and practice. ETTAPE method sets an example of practical and hands-on approach in which students are asked to plan and operate a business venture. Through this method, students will not only learn about the theoretical aspects of the entrepreneurship education but also develops practical knowledge required for setting up a new business. Another interesting and relevant pedagogy for the entrepreneurship education is the critical pedagogy, where the students develop critical awareness through a series of reflective processes. The Verduijn & Berglund (2018) have adopted this pedagogy in designing an entrepreneurship education. Critical pedagogy provides space to the students to deconstruct the existing authoritarian knowledge and construct their own context-based knowledge. In this approach, the prospective entrepreneur deconstructs the invalid and outdated knowledge on entrepreneurship education through reflection and then work on co-creating functional and valid knowledge about entrepreneurship education. Through this approach, students not only gain entrepreneurial competencies, but also develop critical thinking and decision-making skills. Place-based pedagogy is another approach which is adopted for designing entrepreneurship education programmes. Larty (2021) planned place-based activities for entrepreneurship education in which students observe their communities, analyzed their needs and then design business for the communities. This type of pedagogical intervention exposes the students to the demands and nature of the community in which they will be working in future. Teaching Strategies or Models for developing entrepreneurial mindset Based on pedagogical interventions and recommendations for developing entrepreneurial mindset of learners, following teaching models can be adopted by teachers in classroom:
1. Effectuation is developed by Sarasvathy, (2001); it’s a hand-on activity in which student in a group is asked to identify a real-life problem by interacting with the community members or via active observation of the people who are affected by that problem. After the thorough analysis of the problem, the students have to look for the ways in which they can help. This will lead to the generation of the value-creation project. 2. Business modal canvas is created by Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010). It is in the form of a checklist given to students whenever they are planning for venture creation. The checklist contains nine basic building blocks or areas that need to be covered whenever any venture is created for the external stake-holder. This strategy could serve as an excellent scaffold for the students, who have no information on designing the start-ups. 3. Customer development is devised by Blank & Dorf (2012), emphasizes on testing whether a created venture or services holds value for the stakeholders or not. The students go out in the field with some robust tools like interview schedules, questionnaires, observation sheets etc. and explore the relevance and validity of a venture within the context. This strategy is based on the place-based pedagogy, which enables the students to missionize their future venture creation. 4. Appreciative inquiry is a method designed by Blenker et al., (2011) where the students focus on the inquiring about the processes that have led to the successful creation of a venture. This method will enable the students to explore the successful business strategies that could work in the future. 5. Service-learning is a strategy where the instructions are integrated with the community. It follows a place-based approach. In this, the teachers design service-learning programmes for the students enrolled in the entrepreneurship programmes. During this service-learning programme, students have to create a venture that matches with the need of the community. (Kenworthy-U’Ren et al., 2006. |
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| Conclusion |
The narrow and the wide meaning of the entrepreneurship education aspire toward the value-creation either for one’s own business or for the company in which the individual is employed. Preparing students for this position is the entire goal of entrepreneurial education. The paper has effectively exemplified the prominent pedagogy approaches in the field of entrepreneurship education via varied case studies. These prominent approaches are experiential learning, critical pedagogy, placed-based approach and constructivists approach. Some major recommendations form the review of the case studies are; hands-on training for developing ventures, scaffolding the designing of business ideas by the students, facilitating community learning experiences and reflective practices. The paper also mentioned some of the teaching strategies like effectuation, business modal canvas, customer development, appreciative inquiry and service learning that can be incorporated in teaching of entrepreneurship education. |
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