Daniele Morselli

Assessing the Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship in Vocational Students Using the European Qualification Framework.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to find a framework for the assessment of the learning outcomes of entrepreneurship education as a cross-curricular subject. The problem is twofold: the first difficulty is the relationship to the general issues regarding competence and its assessment; the second difficulty is the assessment of competencies in cross-curricular education in diverse contexts such as school and work. Design/methodology/approach – The European key competence for lifelong learning of the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and the European qualification framework (EQF) are convenient to benchmark the outcomes of enterprise education. In order to assess and develop competence in vocational students, educators should design real life problem solving situations, which are new for the students and closely related to their vocations. Findings – The study describes an assessment process of the learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills and competence. While the authors tested knowledg...

Teaching a Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship with Constructive Alignment in Tertiary Non-Business Contexts.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to focus on a course in entrepreneurship education for students studying for a Masters in Educational Sciences at a Finnish university. The course was structured around the principles of constructive alignment and aimed to move beyond reflection on entrepreneurship towards action Design/methodology/approach The course was delivered in alignment with intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment. Along with lectures, group work and peer-review activities, students prepared a career development plan as the course progressed, undertook a homework assignment, wrote a reflective journal, and sat the GET2 test twice. Findings Quantitative and qualitative analysis suggests that students developed more enterprising attitudes as result of participating in the course. This paper makes an argument in favour of entrepreneurship as a subject for all, a transformative experience capable of shaping the mindset in all who participate. Originality/value This paper shows how a course on entrepreneurial education based on a “through” approach can be taught at a tertiary level in places other than economics faculties or business schools. Most tertiary courses rely on “about” and “for” approaches to entrepreneurial education, are teacher-centred, and follow a behaviouristic or cognitive learning paradigm of knowledge transmission, as opposed to the student-centred constructivist approach deployed and described here.

Boundary crossing workshops for enterprise education

Abstract This chapter proposes that enterprise education when applied to vocational education should be reconsidered according to a capability approach. This approach aims to improve students’ active participation and also their ability to make informed choices. Moreover, we believe that enterprise education needs an underpinning learning theory which can account for the collective nature of learning, innovation and movement across organisations. This new theoretical framework can be expansive learning. This chapter describes a case study carried out in 2014 in an Italian vocational course in hospitality. It documents the implementation of the theory of expansive learning for enterprise education within a series of workshops and evidences how a capabilities approach has been effectively utilised. During work experience, vocational students belong simultaneously to diverse activity systems such as school and work, which creates discontinuities in action and interaction. The basic principle of the workshops is that with the help of the researcher, vocational students, teachers and work tutors discuss the issues that students are having during work experience. This chapter begins with a discussion on the role of enterprise education in vocational education, and continues by showing how the capability approach can contribute to education and entrepreneurship. The third section explains why and how the theory of expansive learning can underpin entrepreneurship education and how it was utilised in the model of workshops which incorporate enterprise education theory. Section four describes the case study in an Italian vocational secondary institute. The data presented includes excerpts of discussions during the fourth workshop, the student’s answer to the final questionnaire and the follow-up after two years. The conclusion draws out the learning mechanisms which characterised the workshops, what the students learnt in term of enterprise education and how the workshops are connected to a capability approach.

How do Italian vocational teachers educate for a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship? Development and initial application of the SIE questionnaire

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how educators can teach the key competence of a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship (SIE) as a cross-curricular subject in compulsory education. It draws both on the literature relating to entrepreneurial education and on competence-based education to set out five features of entrepreneurial teaching. For illustrative purposes, these five characteristics are explored in a questionnaire put to a small group of teaching staff. Design/methodology/approach This study employs a qualitative approach, seeking to understand the personal perspectives of participants, and drawing out the complexities of their behaviour, whilst also providing a holistic interpretation of such behaviour. Findings The literature review identifies five features of entrepreneurial teaching: embedding learning outcomes for a SIE within taught subjects; active entrepreneurial teaching; educating for entrepreneurial attitudes; networking activities; being entrepreneurial as part of lifelong learning. It can be hypothesised that teaching staff teach different aspects of the SIE depending on the subject they teach (vocational or more traditional) and their role (teacher or workshop assistant). Originality/value Development of the SIE and the five characteristics of entrepreneurial teaching is a first step towards understanding how secondary vocational teachers and workshop assistants understand and teach the SIE as cross-curricular subject. In line with Fayolle and Gailly who called for deeper investigation of the most effective combinations of objectives, content and teaching methods, the paper seeks to establish a relationship between teaching methods, development of entrepreneurial attitudes and assessment.

Conclusions: Vocational Education and Entrepreneurship Education Face Their Common Zone of Proximal Development

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is a Vygotskian concept, and describes the difference between what the child is able to perform on their own and what he or she might be able to execute with the help of an educator or more expert peer (Vygotsky, 1978). In Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) this concept has been enlarged to encompass multiple interacting activity systems (Engestrom & Sannino, 2010): in a Change Laboratory, during a cycle of expansive learning, the participants envision the ZPD of their activity system(s). In a similar vein, Engestrom (2004b) utilizes this concept to envision the future of research for expertise. This chapter will similarly envision the ZPD of the two complementary forms of education that were the object of this study: enterprise education and vocational education. The citation above from UNESCO underlines the advantages of these types of education for both individuals and society. It also emphasizes the importance of, and the renewed interest in, these types of education internationally.