An Enterprise Opportunity for Entrepreneurial Students: Student Enterprise Development and Experience Assessed through the Student Voice

Purpose: This research investigates the effectiveness of an experiential learning approach, available to students in all disciplines that combined a hands-on entrepreneurial and enterprise experience with professional consultant mentoring by using a competition to win business start-up funding. Design/methodology/approach: Students at a UK university had the chance to enter a competition in which they developed an entrepreneurial idea and then designed and presented a business plan to win business start-up capital. Students who were entrepreneurially motivated, but who lacked capital to start up their business, were targeted, as these students have been argued to benefit the most from a combination of business plan training and entrepreneurial development. Feedback and data was obtained from the students at each stage of the process and was thematically analysed to assess the development of students’ entrepreneurial skills and knowledge through the experience. Findings: The research found that the benefits gained from this approach included both enterprising and entrepreneurial skills, with the greatest impact being on student confidence and belief in their ability to start a business. The practical skills had a ‘demystifying’ effect on students that made them feel like entrepreneurship and enterprise start-up were attainable. Research limitations/implications: The research focused on students at one UK University and centered on entrepreneurship in a retail business. The competition thus appealed mainly to students who were interested in retail start-up, thus leaving out some enterprising students whose feedback may have been different. In addition, while entrepreneurial skills are assessed in the data, the students who would be interested in the competition would be assumed to be proactive, and this skill was not able to be analyzed. This research is a single case, and thus could be enhanced by more cases and looking at other enterprise start-up means beyond retail. Originality/value: This research makes a case that, in light of literature critical of the use of business plan training in entrepreneurship education, certain students are appropriate candidates for this approach. Specific skills and knowledge can be developed in university students using a live enterprise experience, supported by entrepreneurial mentoring. By making the event extracurricular, the study sought to capture the feedback of students who self-selected into the program, who can benefit most from combined entrepreneurial and business-plan development experience

Concerns and Expectations of Students Participating in Study Abroad Programs: Blogging to Reveal the Dynamic Student Voice

Study abroad programmes (SAP) have become increasingly popular with university students and within academia. They are often seen as an experiential opportunity to expand student learning and development, including increases in global, international, and intercultural competences. However, despite the increasing popularity of and participation in study abroad programmes, many student concerns and uncertainties remain. This research investigates initial pre-departure concerns and apprehensions of students undertaking a one-semester study abroad programme and uses these as context for an examination of violated expectations of students during their programme. The research uses interpretative phenomenological analysis to interpret data collected from regularly-updated blogs composed by students throughout their SAP experience. The process of using blogs to collect data is less formalised than many other approaches of interpretative phenomenological analysis, enabling ‘in the moment’ feedback during the SAP and lending greater depth to the understanding of student perceptions

Unpacking the Link Between Entrepreneurialism and Employability: an Assessment of the Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Attitudes and Likelihood of Graduate Employment in a Professional Field

Purpose This research investigates the relationship between students’ entrepreneurial attitudes and traits and their classification of employment six months after university graduation. It aims to identify what specific attitudes and traits of entrepreneurial graduates are linked to employability in a professional or managerial field. Design/Methodology The research adopts a quantitative approach to measure the entrepreneurial drive of final-year undergraduate business school students and regresses this measurement against the employment level of the same students six months after their graduation. The employment classification of each respondent was classified as ‘professional/managerial’ or ‘non-professional/non-managerial’, in line with the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) 2010. Findings The research found that both proactive disposition and achievement motivation were statistically linked to the likelihood of graduates being employed in a professional or managerial position six months after graduation. Originality/Value This research goes beyond existing literature linking entrepreneurship to employability to quantitatively examine what specific attitudes and traits can be linked to employability in recent graduates. By identifying the aspects of entrepreneurialism that have a relationship with employability, more information is available for educators who are designing entrepreneurial education programs and allows for greater focus on aspects that may be of greatest benefit to all students

Applying educational theory to develop a framework to support the delivery of experiential entrepreneurship education

Purpose Experiential approaches have become increasingly common in entrepreneurship education in response to calls for different approaches to the traditional didactic process driven approach. Experiential approaches offer the potential to develop the skills and mind-set that are required in entrepreneurship. Research has highlighted the critical importance of educator pedagogical competence in the delivery and quality of teaching and learning in further and higher education. Nevertheless, educator narratives and practices are often based on foundations that suggest a lack in the depth of knowledge and understanding of the underlying pedagogic learning theories and practice. This paper brings educational theory and pedagogic practice together in a three-stage framework of the experiential entrepreneurship learning process to support entrepreneurship educators within further and higher education. Design/Methodology/Approach This paper reviews and brings together the seminal educational theories and philosophies of constructivism, objectivism, Kolb’s (1984) theory of experiential learning, Schön’s (1983) reflection-in-action and Mezirow’s (1997) theory of transformative learning, to develop a framework which underpins the experiential entrepreneurship learning process. Findings This paper develops a three-stage framework which informs the roles of the educator and the learner in experiential entrepreneurship education within further and higher education, based on educational theories and philosophies that inform the learning process. Practical Implications The developed framework supports the pedagogic competence of educators in the delivery of experiential entrepreneurship education through a deeper understanding of the supporting theory that informs the pedagogic practice. This will provide consolidation to enable educators to maximise the effectiveness of their educational practice (Kaynardağ, 2019) and can increase the legitimacy of entrepreneurship education (Foliard et al., 2018). Originality/value This paper meets calls in the literature to provide a closer engagement between educational theory and pedagogic practice to afford guidance as to how educators can navigate some of the different educational theories and philosophies to consolidate the effective delivery of quality experiential entrepreneurship education. Applying seminal educational theories and philosophies to ensure the quality of experiential education can support the legitimacy of experiential entrepreneurship education

SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research) Annual Report 1994/1995

The Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research (SOAR) was a facility of the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs whose mission is to make airborne geophysical observations available to the broad research community of geology, glaciology and other sciences. The central office of the SOAR facility is located in Austin, Texas within the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Other institutions with significant responsibilities are the Lamont­ Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Geophysics Branch of the U.S . Geological Survey. This report summarizes the goals and accomplishments of the SOAR facility during 1994/1995 and plans for the next year.National Science Foundation's Office of Polar ProgramsInstitute for Geophysic

Kinematic Positioning with DGPS: Expanding Frontiers in Aerogeophysics

Airborne geophysics has long been used for regional studies of remote and inaccessible areas. Recent developments in precise positioning of aircraft with the Global Positioning System (GPS) have greatly expanded the range of previously intractable science problems which now can be addressed with airborne techniques (i.e. Brozena et al, 1992). Differential GPS techniques for modern aerogeophysical studies include both realtime navigation of the aircraft and post-mission recovery of the precise positions for data reduction. Major science problems which have been addressed recently with aerogeophysics include deciphering the dynamics of the world's major ice sheets, imaging surface displacements due to earthquakes and decoding the structure of the continental lithosphere. Airborne studies often recover higher resolution data than can be retrieved with satellite technology. Subsequently the aircraft based approach fills a unique niche where land and ship based operations are expensive, difficult or even impossible

Teacher Cognitions in Relation to Pedagogical Practices and Transformative Learning for Purposes of Pre-service Teacher Education

This study purpose is to explore the connection of teacher beliefs, knowledge about education, teaching, and learning in relation to classroom practice of university academics, who use transformative pedagogies to teach education courses on diversity, social justice and equity. The study is built on the assumption that teaching is a cultural construct (Hollins, 2011b). Second, the study is built on the assumption that human learning is a multi-dimensional and complex process mediated through culture and situated in a particular institutional setting (Wertsch et al., 1995). The study attempts to accomplish this aim through an interpretive, qualitative evaluation of one, African-American university professor’s ideological beliefs and the socialization of these beliefs on education, human learning, knowledge and its relationship to teaching in his classroom. He is situated in a conservative, Protestant, liberal arts institution to prepare pre-service teachers to teach students from varying cultures and ethnicities that differ from their own. To allow the discourse of power and privilege to go unchallenged and unshaped in teacher education programs for pre-service teachers will not support the learning of diverse and underserved students (Hollins, 2011b). The education process of preparing the next generation of pre-service teachers is complex. . . such complexity requires teacher educators to develop programs that will create habits of mind that replace the dominant social discourse of power and privilege in teacher learning. In addition, to change the social discourse, teacher education programs must focus on education research and practice in teacher preparation that explores all voices, not just the dominant voices of research on teacher education, even if it means examining hard questions about one’s own personal perspective on these issues

The Impact and Support of Constructivist Learning Environments to Develop Entrepreneurial and Enterprising Graduates to Enhance Employability

Governments have encouraged higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop entrepreneurial, innovative and highly employable graduates. Accordingly, employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship are all high on the agendas of United Kingdom (UK) HEIs (Sewell and Dacre Pool, 2010) and the use of constructivist approaches, such as experiential learning and problem based learning, may offer an effective way to develop the entrepreneurial, enterprising and employability skills that both graduates and employers need. Constructivist approaches in higher education (HE) have become increasingly common across a wide range of disciplines in recent decades. This is particularly true in the field of entrepreneurship where the development of entrepreneurial skills requires different hands-on or experience based approaches to the more traditional didactic lecture based teaching methods (Jones and English, 2004; Jones and Iredale, 2010; Zahra and Welter, 2008). Constructivism lends itself to active based learning approaches which can result in improved problem solving skills, improved knowledge retention, and improved motivation (Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Rhem, 1998; Snyder, 2003). Furthermore, unlike didactic teaching approaches, constructivist active learning can lead to changes in both thought and attitude, and the development of behavioural skills (Bligh, 2000; Grimley et al., 2011). Whilst there is much practical practitioner based research focusing on the implementation of constructivist enterprise education, there is limited existing research focusing on the constructivist learning theory underpinning constructivism. This has led to a degree of separation between practitioner-based research and constructivist learning theory in abstraction and application. This thesis addresses three research questions • How can constructivism be applied to enterprise education in HE? • What is the relationship between constructivist learning environments and the development of enterprising graduates? • How can learning environments be created and implemented to effectively support the development of enterprising graduates? This thesis investigates a range of constructivist pedagogic interventions across a range of academic levels, subjects, and disciplines, both within and outside of formal curricula, to explore their ability to develop enterprising skills and to consider how they can be created, developed and implemented to effectively support the development of these skills. In addition, the portfolio contains an assessment of the relationship between a range of entrepreneurial attitudes and the likelihood of graduate employment in a professional field six months after graduation in Paper 1. This provides some quantitative evidence that enterprising skills that can be developed by constructivist active learning can have an impact on graduate employability. This portfolio provides a strong case for the use of constructivist approaches in developing a wide range of entrepreneurial and enterprising skills that graduates require, enhancing their employability and enabling them to be more enterprising. These skills included developing a proactive disposition, achievement motivation, self-efficacy, interpersonal skills, team working, communication skills, planning, attitude to risk, leadership and a preference for innovation. This portfolio found support for the contention that in general, students respond positively to these approaches and satisfaction levels are high e.g. in Paper 5 and in Paper 6. However, Papers 2 and 4 highlighted the importance of adequate temporary scaffolding, where appropriate, to ensure access to learning for all students. The learning points that can be taken from the portfolio to help develop and create the best pedagogy and constructivist learning environment for students to maximise the benefits of constructivism are summarised in Appendix 2. Paper 7 considers the development of a constructivist intervention that involves external stakeholders. This research focused on the perspectives of students, faculty and stakeholders to better understand the creation, implementation, and development of such pedagogic interventions. This thesis concludes that enterprise education in HE should be based not only on didactic teaching but should also involve the application of constructivist active learning approaches (particularly experiential learning) based and grounded on constructivist learning theory to develop enterprise skills. Thus enterprise education can be viewed as a mixture or fusion of didactic teaching to impart essential theoretical knowledge and the application of constructivist learning approaches which seek to develop experiential knowledge and skills, which can be developed through both experience and reflection. This thesis contributes to knowledge by combining constructivist learning theory and practice based research to underpin the application of constructivism in enterprise education. It provides additional depth and breadth to research on constructivist pedagogy, using a range of research methods across a range of educational settings, to support the development of enterprise skills and employability. It identifies how to achieve best practice in the delivery of constructivist learning through the implementation of constructivist learning principles and highlights the pivotal role of the educator in supporting student learning in a constructivist learning environment

Educator Challenges in the Development and Delivery of Constructivist Active and Experiential Entrepreneurship Classrooms in Chinese Vocational Higher Education

Purpose The purpose of this research is to investigate the perceived challenges that Chinese vocational college educators face in developing and delivering constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative data were collected from twenty-four focus groups of educators who had been tasked with embedding constructivist entrepreneurship education into their teaching and curriculum, at four different vocational colleges situated in four different provinces in China. The data was coded and analysed for emerging themes using a process of bottom up thematic analysis. Findings A range of concerns were identified from the focus groups and these could be divided into five main challenges, which were the role of the educator in the constructivist learning process and their ability to control the process; the educators’ perceived student reaction to the process and their engagement with it; the time and technology required to deliver the process; the link between constructivist learning and industry; and the educators’ perception of the requirements to meet internal expectations. Research limitations/implications This research explores the educators’ perceptions of the challenges they face in developing and delivering active and experiential constructivist entrepreneurship education. Whilst these concerns may impact how the educators’ approach the task, these concerns are only perceived, as the educators’ have not yet implemented the introduction of constructivist entrepreneurship education, when other challenges may become evident. Originality/value Encouragement by the Chinese government to develop and deliver constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education has resulted in a number of tensions and challenges. Entrepreneurship education in China is still relatively young and under researched and this research contributes to the literature by exploring the challenges that educators face in developing and delivering constructivist entrepreneurship education in Chinese vocational colleges