Elena Ruskovaara

Teachers implementing entrepreneurship education: classroom practices

Purpose – This study aims to highlight the entrepreneurship education practices teachers use in their work. Another target is to analyze how these practices differ based on a number of background factors.Design/methodology/approach – This article presents a quantitative analysis of 521 teachers and other entrepreneurship education actors. The paper first examines the overall picture of entrepreneurship education practices. Then, after a factor analysis, the paper builds new sum measures of entrepreneurship education practices. Finally, the paper studies the teachers’ background information to further analyze the entrepreneurship education practices.Findings – The findings provide information on which methods appear to be used the most frequently in basic and upper secondary education, and how these practices vary between different school levels. The results also indicate that the perception teachers have of their own entrepreneurship education skills is closely connected to the implementation of entrepren...

Entrepreneurship Education in Schools: Empirical Evidence on the Teacher's Role.

ABSTRACT Different approaches and methodologies for entrepreneurship education have been introduced for schools. However, a better theoretical and empirical understanding of the antecedents of entrepreneurship education is needed. The authors analyze what entrepreneurship education practices are used in schools and what role the school and the teacher are playing in determining the entrepreneurship education practices. The data cover school levels from basic to upper secondary education. The findings indicate that the training teachers have received in entrepreneurship seems to be the main factor determining the observable entrepreneurship education provided by the teachers. Further studies on the antecedents of entrepreneurship education are encouraged.

Facing the Changing Demands of Europe: Integrating Entrepreneurship Education in Finnish Teacher Training Curricula

The European Union (EU) considers the learning of entrepreneurial skills to be an essential factor in creating welfare. Therefore, in the EU, one of the latest core aspects is to develop entrepreneurship education in teacher education. However, entrepreneurship education still seems to be, across the countries, a quite uncommon theme. This article describes the ways in which entrepreneurship education is included in the curricula of Finnish teacher training. The curricula for academic and vocational teacher education were obtained in autumn 2010, either online or by requesting them in paper or electronic format. The inclusion of entrepreneurship education has developed relatively effectively in the curricula of vocational teacher education units. Academic teacher education units have not really increased the quantity of entrepreneurship education in their curricula. In the curricula of the teacher training schools, entrepreneurship education is mentioned at least as a formality. The current unstable situation in the EU requires not only economic arrangements, but also new approaches in other areas, such as education and its reform. As an implication for practice, we propose there could be more support for curriculum design of higher education at both national and EU level.

How do Finnish teacher educators implement entrepreneurship education

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how the people who train Finnish teachers implement entrepreneurship education in the guidance they provide. The authors show how learning through, for and about entrepreneurship manifests in the self-evaluations of Finnish teacher educators. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected in spring 2012 with a quantitative survey questionnaire to 100 teacher educators and training teachers for vocational and general education, to rectors and managers. Findings – The teacher educators used a relatively large number of the pedagogical models and methods pursued in entrepreneurship education, such as problem based learning, experiential and practical descriptions of situations, and they also encouraged their students to take responsibility and to be self-directed. These can be seen to specifically support learning for entrepreneurship. On the other hand there would still be room for improvement as regards the teacher educators’ guidance through entrepreneurship. Practical implications – It would be appropriate in entrepreneurship education to take account of prospective teachers’ authentic experiences of entrepreneurship. For example, in teacher training greater use could be made of practice enterprises, co-operative operations, on-the-job learning and methods such as the Young Enterprise business incubator. Originality/value – The European Union places particular emphasis on the further development of entrepreneurship education in teacher training. The study opens up perspectives on what kinds of skills teacher educators impart to prospective teachers who will continue in working life until the 2070s.

Creating a measurement tool for entrepreneurship education: a participatory development approach

The aim of this paper is to illustrate and model the construction of a measurement tool for entrepreneurship education where the tool itself is targeted toward Finnish teachers working in primary and secondary education. This study represents participatory action research (Argyris 1993) as the research context has been facilitated and provided by the researchers, and where the study objects initiate, respond, and develop their activities, thereby reforming the context further. The presented case is an illustration of the building of a Measurement Tool for Entrepreneurship Education, prepared in an ESF-funded project. In this study we present multi-method, multi-investigator, multiple data, and multiple theory triangulation (Denzin 1988) settings. From the data, the phases of the measurement tool construction were identified. Our aim is to present the process in order to link the theory and practice of entrepreneurship education. Here, a broad and multilayered definition of entrepreneurship education is utilized, and by making these aspects explicit the tool itself has a role not only as a teacher’s self-evaluation kit but also as a steering system for developing schools and regions on a larger scale.

Company visits as an opportunity for entrepreneurial learning

The research field of entrepreneurship education has emerged rapidly. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the organisation of company visits. Especially, the utilisation of companies to expand the learning environment has been largely dismissed. This study examines company visits as an opportunity for entrepreneurial learning in compulsory education. The empirical part of this study considers five cases. The informants are teachers in compulsory education. The findings show that company visits are a broader concept than previous literature suggests, and depending on the way the visits are organised, they create very different learning possibilities. The cases indicate that teachers willingly cooperate with companies, although organising company visits remains a challenge. The findings highlight the positive effects of school-company cooperation, and especially the cases where students implement the process to create significant potential for entrepreneurial learning.