What makes entrepreneurial learning difficult: cognitive conflicts or cultural clashes?

As more entrepreneurial experiences are integrated into engineering programs, students are faced with new challenges they need help in managing. While previous research has identified entrepreneurial activities that engineering students struggle with, the antecedents of these difficulties have not been directly investigated. Drawing on an ethnographic study in a project-based entrepreneurship course, this paper investigates difficulties as caused by both cognitive conflicts and cultural clashes. The findings suggest that difficulties with entrepreneurial activities do not necessarily stem from lack of entrepreneurial capabilities on behalf of students, they can just as well stem from legitimate conflicts of interest that students and teachers need to navigate. As such, difficulties cannot always be solved by students learning more about entrepreneurship. As shown in the study, collaborative and externally oriented learning activities–mainstays of project-based entrepreneurship courses–particularly contribute to putting competing social demands on students

Investigating the Dynamics of Authentic Learning in a Project-based Engineering Course

Educational researchers and practitioners have long lamented the chasm between education and real-world experiences or issues. A popular way to mitigate this gap is through designing authentic learning experiences, and much previous work has focused on developing models for this design. The paper addresses a gap in such frameworks, namely the occurrence of tensions and negotiations between ways of working that students and teachers find authentic and meaningful. Focusing on the strategies employed by teachers in the design of an authentic learning environment and students’ reactions to these, we present a qualitative case study of a project-based engineering course in which student teams created software applications in collaboration with an external stakeholder. We find that tensions between what students and teachers deemed meaningful arose from on the one hand students’ readiness to take on self-directed learning and on the other hand differences between disciplinary views and students’ habits of mind related to software development. We illustrate how the teachers’ ability to bridge these tensions seemed hinged on their understanding of students’ prior learning experiences, and the enminding of these into learning activities. To enhance the value of contemporary models of authentic learning as practical and explanatory frameworks, we argue for adding two theoretical constructs – tensions and negotiations – and we call for more and longitudinal research on thes

Authenticity work in higher education learning environments: a double-edged sword?

Educational authenticity occupies a strong position in higher education research and reform, building on the assumption that correspondence between higher education learning environments and professional settings is a driver of student engagement and transfer of knowledge beyond academia. In this paper, we draw attention to an overlooked aspect of authenticity, namely the rhetorical work teachers engage in to establish their learning environments as authentic and pedagogically appropriate. We use the term “authenticity work” to denote such rhetorical work. Drawing on ethnography and critical discourse analysis, we describe how two teachers engaged in authenticity work through renegotiating professional and educational discourse in their project-based engineering course. This ideological project was facilitated by three discursive strategies: (1) deficitization of students and academia, (2) naturalization of industry practices, and (3) polarization of the state of affairs in academia and in industry. Our findings suggest that authenticity work is a double-edged sword: While authenticity work may serve to bolster the legitimacy that is ascribed to learning environments, it may also close down opportunities for students to develop critical thinking about their profession and their education. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for teaching and propose a nascent research agenda for authenticity work in higher education learning environments

Exploring Students’ Transition into Experiential Entrepreneurship Education: Challenges and Learning

Questions we care about: Experiential entrepreneurship education (EEE) is offered to an increasing spectrum of students, with a growing need to cater to more and more diverse backgrounds. While this provides opportunity for universities to contribute to entrepreneurial competences among graduates, the teaching format associated with EEE interventions poses many challenges for the learner. The nature of these challenges and how they relate to students’ learning processes in EEE is not well-known. Accordingly, the paper poses the following questions: What challenges do students face in transitioning into EEE? How do these challenges relate to students’ process of developing an understanding of how to take on learning in EEE?Approach: The paper draws on social cognitive theory and previous work on learning in constructivist learning environments to propose a framework for studying students’ transition into EEE as a process of (re-)constructing their expectations on curricular learning from entrepreneurial experience. Further, the dynamics of such a process is investigated through a qualitative case study of a project-based course in which students worked in teams towards generating, developing and validating business ideas through real customer interaction. Data was collected mainly through reflective assignments and retrospective interviews, and analyzed through a general inductive approach.Results: Four critical learning cycles relating to perceived challenges was identified as students starting to engage in the course: coming up with an idea, engaging externals actors, pivoting and managing openness. These challenges seemed to be overcome as students gained new experience, re-shaping their expectations of the nature and purpose of such activities.Implications: Acknowledging students’ transition into EEE as a dual process of re-shaping students’ ways of organizing their competences in relation to entrepreneurial processes and curricular activities opens for further investigations into the nature of challenges and learning processes when new students are coming into EEE. Moreover, the study highlights how scaffolded integration of entrepreneurial experience into curricular activities can challenge students’ habitual roles and certain pre-conceptions of entrepreneurial processes.Value/Originality: Through investigating challenges as students starts to engage in EEE, the study contributes to unveiling the dynamics of transitioning into such learning environments

Towards Entrepreneurial Engineering Pedagogy: Exploring the Unsettled Trajectories of Entrepreneurial Projects

Background: Contemporary perspectives on engineering education have featured repeated calls for development of entrepreneurial ways of practicing engineering among engineering graduates, and entrepreneurial engineering pedagogy has recently become a burgeoning research topic. Previous work on entrepreneurial engineering pedagogy has proposed engaging students in self-directedly framing and tackling of real-world projects, in connection to external stakeholders. While there are empirical accounts of such entrepreneurial projects in engineering education, little is known about how educators design and implement such projects and how students experience them.Purpose: The thesis investigates entrepreneurial projects as a pedagogical framework in engineering education and sets out to i) inductively identify pedagogical models for designing and implementing entrepreneurial projects in engineering curricula, and ii) to study these pedagogical models in action, particularly challenges and how they are mitigated through scaffolding.Methodology: The three studies presented in the thesis employ qualitative research approaches based in multi-case study and ethnographic methods in learning environments where engineering students are engaged in entrepreneurial projects. In the first study, educators were interviewed regarding the pedagogical models they use to infuse entrepreneurial experiences into project-based courses. The second two studies draw on in-depth ethnographic data, with an interest in what students deem challenging about entrepreneurial projects and how teachers provide continuous and contingent support.Findings: Three pedagogical models for designing and implementing entrepreneurial projects were identified, all underpinned by an ambition to engage students in co-creating new knowledge together with external stakeholders. Tensions between students’ habitual ways of taking on curricular projects and the ways of practicing espoused by teachers were identified, causing students to struggle with connecting to externals and with sense-making the projects in light of their previous experiences. As such, the pedagogical models seemed to offer unsettled trajectories towards knowledge co-creation. Teachers were found to navigate these trajectories through arranging opportunities for reflection upon and negotiation of disciplinary practices.Conclusion: While previous work has put forth self-directed and impact-seeking projects as integral for supporting an entrepreneurial way of practicing engineering, the studies presented in the thesis suggest that students do not necessarily move seamlessly into taking on such projects. The thesis calls both for more ethnographic investigations and for more cross-case analyses of how engineering students are engaged in curricular knowledge co-creation, and how the unsettled trajectories of entrepreneurial projects are experienced by students and scaffolded by teachers

Entrepreneurial Engineering Pedagogy: Models, Tradeoffs and Discourses

While entrepreneurship discourse is gaining traction in engineering andthe number of entrepreneurship courses increase rapidly, there is a lackof study focusing on how and why engineering educators facilitateentrepreneurial experiences in their courses. Using a qualitative andinductive case-study approach, this paper explores and explicatespedagogical models for facilitating entrepreneurial experiences inengineering, and their underlying design principles. Investigating sevenentrepreneurial project-based courses, three distinct pedagogical modelsfor facilitating entrepreneurial experiences are identified. Two potentiallyconflicting dimensions are highlighted and argued as vital for educatorsto consider when implementing entrepreneurial experiences into theircourses. These dimensions are: to make learning more personal, andto make learning more professional. The paper discusses howentrepreneurial engineering pedagogy is anchored in entrepreneurshipeducation and engineering education discourse, and suggests meansthrough which the two disparate streams of research can be integratedin order to further research on entrepreneurial engineering pedagogy

A Population-Based Study of Unfavorable Prognostic Factors Associated With Pyogenic Liver Abscess

BackgroundPyogenic liver abscess (PLA) is a rare entity that is associated with substantial mortality and morbidity. Our objective was to investigate variables associated with mortality and subsequent PLA in patients diagnosed with PLA in southern Sweden.MethodsWe conducted a population-based observational study comprising all episodes of PLA that occurred between 2011 and 2020 in the county of Skåne, southern Sweden. The primary outcome was defined as all-cause 90-day mortality and the secondary outcome was defined as the occurrence of a subsequent PLA.ResultsA total of 452 episodes of PLA occurred in 360 patients during the study period. The 90-day mortality rate was 16% (n = 58) and the subsequent PLA rate was 20% (n = 92). In a multivariable logistic regression model, female sex (odds ratio [OR], 2.0 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.1–3.9]), malignancy (OR, 3.7 [95% CI, 1.9–7.1]), liver failure (OR, 6.3 [95% CI, 2.7–14.5]), and polymicrobial findings (OR, 3.8 [95% CI, 2.2–6.9]) were associated with death within 90 days (P < .05). Male sex (OR, 2.1 [95% CI, 1.2–3.6]), malignancy (OR, 2.1 [95% CI, 1.3–3.6]), age (64–74 years: OR, 2.5 [95% CI, 1.3–4.8]), and chronic liver disease (OR, 3.0 [95% CI, 1.4–6.5]) were associated with the risk of subsequent PLA (P ≤ .01).ConclusionsIdentifying different clinical variables associated with an unfavorable outcome may improve the management and treatment of patients with PLA and thus prevent the risk of death and subsequent PLA

Hyperglycemia as a risk factor in pancreatic cancer : A nested case-control study using prediagnostic blood glucose levels

Objective: To determine the risk association between fasting glucose levels and pancreatic cancer using systematically collected prediagnostic blood glucose samples. Methods: Prospective nested case-control study of participants from the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study, including 182 cases that developed pancreatic cancer and four matched controls per case. Blood glucose levels collected up to 24 years before pancreatic cancer diagnosis were analyzed. The association between fasting glucose levels and pancreatic cancer risk was determined using unconditional and conditional logistic regression models. The association between fasting glucose and the time to pancreatic cancer diagnosis, tumor stage and survival was determined using likelihood-ratio test, t test and log rank test. Results: The unadjusted risk of developing pancreatic cancer increased with increasing fasting glucose levels (OR 1.30, 95% CI 1.05-1.60, P = .015). Impaired fasting glucose (>6.1 mmol/L) was associated with an adjusted risk of 1.77 for developing pancreatic cancer (95% CI 1.05-2.99, P = .032). In subgroup analysis, fasting glucose levels were associated with an increased risk in never-smokers (OR 4.02, 95% CI 1.26-12.77, P = .018) and non-diabetics (OR 3.08, 95% CI 1.08-8.79, P = .035) (non-significant for interaction). The ratio between fasting glucose and BMI was higher among future pancreatic cancer patients and an increased ratio was associated with elevated risk of pancreatic cancer (OR 1.66, 95% CI 1.04-2.66, P = .034). Fasting glucose levels were not associated with TNM stage at diagnosis or survival. Conclusions: High fasting glucose is associated with an increased risk of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of IAP and EPC. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Comparison of the effects of vitamin D products in a psoriasis plaque test and a murine psoriasis xenograft model

The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of Daivobet® and calcipotriol on clinical score and biomarker responses in a modified version of the Scholtz-Dumas psoriasis plaque assay. Furthermore, it was the aim to compare the effects of calcipotriol and betamethasone in the murine psoriasis xenograft model. Twenty four patients with psoriasis were treated topically once daily for three weeks, whereas the grafted mice were treated for four weeks. Clinical responses were scored twice weekly and biopsies were taken at the end of each study to analyse for skin biomarkers by histology and immunohistochemistry. The results clearly demonstrate effects on both clinical signs and biomarkers. In the patient study the total clinical score was reduced significantly with both Daivobet® and calcipotriol. Both treatments reduced epidermal thickness, Ki-67 and cytokeratin 16 expression. T cell infiltration was significantly reduced by Daivobet® but only marginally by calcipotriol. Both treatments showed strong effects on the epidermal psoriatic phenotype