Entrepreneurship Education for Teachers: Quantitative Analysis of Teachers’ Direct Experience in Entrepreneurship

Author(s):

Andreas Ahrens(submitting)Jelena Zascerinska(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

10. Teacher Education Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

10 SES 02 A, The World Beyond: Entrepreneurship, Partnership and Teacher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2013-09-10

15:15-16:45

Room:

A-201

Chair:

Kari Berg

Contribution

Europe is facing enormous socio-economic and unprecedented demographic challenges, including regional disparities, aging populations, high rates of low-skilled adults and of youth unemployment, low birth rates, changing family structures and migration (Lifelong Learning for Creativity and Innovation, 2008) in the context of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. In the light of these challenges, entrepreneurship becomes a viable solution to overcome the unemployed or migrant status the Europeans are exposed to. Furthermore, entrepreneurship contributes to driving innovation and competition in many economic sectors.

Everyone may at some stage need to become an entrepreneur, or to display entrepreneurial behaviour or to have the opportunity of creating his/her own business regardless of background or location (EU Commission, 2004). Thus, learning entrepreneurial skills is becoming an essential factor in creating welfare (Seikkula-Leino, Ruskovaara, Hannula, Saarivirta, 2012). Therefore, entrepreneurship education has increasingly gained interest in the European Union (Seikkula-Leino, Ruskovaara, Ikävalko, Mattila, Rytkölä, 2009). Particularly, entrepreneurship education for teachers is of paramount importance as teachers are a critical success factor in the entrepreneurship development (European Commission, 2011). Therein, teachers’ perspective on entrepreneurship education (Backström-Widjeskog, 2010), national strategies to entrepreneurship education, delivering entrepreneurship education, teacher education for entrepreneurship education (European Commission, 2011), teachers’ reflections about entrepreneurial education (Seikkula-Leino, Ruskovaara, Ikävalko, Mattila, Rytkölä, 2009) have been analysed. The analysis has resulted in the conclusion that the challenge of entrepreneurship education for teachers requires significant changes in the way teachers themselves are educated (European Commission, 2011). One of the methods that have been suggested is acquiring direct experience (The Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, 2006). By acquiring direct experience, teachers will be more effective when using these methods with the students (The Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, 2006). However, teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship has not been analyzed. Such an empirical lacuna regarding teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship has to be filled in as teachers have a two-fold role:

in society, teachers are the agents of change, and

in education and training, teachers are the key actors for the enrichment of learners’ direct experience in entrepreneurship.

The research question is as follows: what is the teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship?

The aim of the research is to analyse teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship underpinning elaboration of a hypothesis on teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship.

The meaning of the key concepts of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education and direct experience in entrepreneurship is studied. Interpretative research paradigm has been applied. The study of entrepreneurship education for teachers has been described. In the present research, teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship means teachers’ knowledge, skills and attitude obtained by implementing a joint entrepreneurial activity. The domains of teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship have been based on the definitions of interactive methods to train teachers in entrepreneurship (The Oslo Agenda, 2006) and entrepreneurship as an individual’s ability (European Commission, 2012, p. 7). The domains of teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship have been defined as running own business, planning to run own business, and having an aim to run own business.

Method

Explorative research has been used. The explorative methodology proceeds from exploration in Phase 1 through analysis in Phase 2 to hypothesis development in Phase 3. The empirical study was conducted at the Leonardo and Grundtvig Partnerships UK Contact Seminar “Back to Learning: Back to Work” at University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 4-7 July 2012. The sample included 59 teachers from different European countries: 16 male and 43 female teachers. Selecting the cases for the case study comprises use of information-oriented sampling, as opposed to random sampling (Mayring, 2007). This is because an average case is often not the richest in information. In addition, it is often more important to clarify the deeper causes behind a given problem and its consequences than to describe the symptoms of the problem and how frequently they occur (Flyvbjerg, 2006). It is more appropriate to select some few cases chosen for their validity. The survey employed the questionnaire based on the domains of teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship such as running own business, planning to run own business, and having an aim to run own business. Descriptive statistics was implemented for primary data analysis.

Expected Outcomes

The findings of the research allow drawing the conclusions on a low level of teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship. The typology of teachers based on their direct experience in entrepreneurship is shown. Validity and reliability of the research results have been provided by involving other researchers into several stages of the conducted research. External validity has been revealed by international co-operation. The following hypothesis has been formulated: teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship develops if - teachers identify their own needs to run their own business, - teachers are motivated by involving them in their personal career exploration, - a favourable educational (teaching, peer-learning and learning) environment for the enrichment of teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship is organized that results in teachers’ improved knowledge, skills and practice to run their own business, - teachers actively participate in running their own business. The present research has limitations. The inter-connections between entrepreneurship and teachers’ direct experience in entrepreneurship have been set. Another limitation is the empirical study conducted by involving only the teachers at one seminar. Empirical studies in other institutions are proposed to be carried out. A comparative research of different countries could be carried out, too.

References

Ashmore, C., (2012). Why We’re So Bad At Teaching Entrepreneurship? May 23, 2012, TIME. Backström-Widjeskog, B., (2010). Teachers’ perspective on “Entrepreneurship Education”. EU Thematic Forum on School-Business Cooperation 24-25.3.2010, Brussels. http://ec.europa.eu/education/school-education/doc/forum0310/backstrom_en.pdf. European Commission, (2004). “Education for Entrepreneurship”. Making progress in promoting entrepreneurial attitudes and skills through Primary and Secondary education. Final Report of the Expert Group, European Commission, Brussels. European Commission, (2011). Entrepreneurship Education: Enabling Teachers as a Critical Success Factor. “A report on Teacher Education and Training to prepare teachers for the challenge of entrepreneurship education.” Final Report November 2011, Bruxelles 2011, European Union, 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/promoting-entrepreneurship/files/education/teacher_education_for_entrepreneurship_final_report_en.pdf. European Commission, (2012). Effects and impact of entrepreneurship programmes in higher education. Brussels, March 2012. European Union, 2012. Mayring, P., (2004). Qualitative Content Analysis. Flick, U., von Kardoff, E., Steinke, I. (Eds.) A Companion to Qualitative Research (SAGE, Glasgow, UK, 2004, 266-269). Mayring, P., (2007). On Generalization in Qualitatively Oriented Research. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 8(3), Art. 26. 2007, 1-8. Sarri K. K., Bakouros, L.I. & Petridou, E., (2010). “Entrepreneur training for creativity and innovation", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 Iss: 3, pp.270 – 288. Seikkula-Leino, J., Ruskovaara, E., Hannula, H., Saarivirta, T., (2012). Facing the Changing Demands of Europe: integrating entrepreneurship education in Finnish teacher training curricula, European Educational Research Journal, 11(3), 382-399. http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/eerj.2012.11.3.382. Seikkula-Leino, J., Ruskovaara, E., Ikävalko, M., Mattila, J., Rytkölä, T., (2009). Teachers’ Reflections about Entrepreneurial Education. 13th EARLI Conference, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, August 25-29, 2009. http://www.oph.fi/download/116383_EARLI2009_Hollanti.pdf. The Oslo Agenda for Entrepreneurship Education in Europe, (2006). The Conference on "Entrepreneurship Education in Europe: Fostering Entrepreneurial Mindsets through Education and Learning", Oslo, Norway, 26-27 October 2006. http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/entrepreneurship/support_measures/training_education/oslo.htm.

Author Information

Andreas Ahrens (submitting)

Hochschule Wismar, University of Technology, Business and Design, Germany

Jelena Zascerinska (presenting)

Centre for Education and Innovation Research, Latvia

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