Pedagogical Innovations in Entrepreneurship_A Research Paper

8/8/2019 Pedagogical Innovations in Entrepreneurship_A Research Paper

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Pedagogical Innovations in Entrepreneurship Page 7

A self designed questionnaire was used to obtain the data. The instrument was administered through

telephonic interviews and by e-mail.

Questions were constructed mainly around four core themes viz;

i. Nature of the Course on Entrepreneurship at the campus

ii.

Course content What is been taught under the subject Entrepreneurship

iii. Course delivery The pedagogical tools used to teach various modules on Entrepreneurship

iv. Assessment of impact on Entrepreneurship courses in campus

5.0 Data Analysis:

The data collected from 25 faculties belonging to various educational institutions were analysed using

SPSS and are summarised as below.

Part 1

Nature of the courses offered at various campuses in India

Based on the affiliations of the Institute, the courses offered on Entrepreneurship differ. Autonomous

colleges are more advantageous in terms of flexibility and course designs compared to University and

University affiliated Institutes. The data collected shows this trend.

Affiliation and nature of the courses on Entrepreneurship

Table 01: Affiliation and Nature of the course

Nature of the course Total

No

Course Compulsory Elective

Compulsory and

Elective

Affiliation

University 0 5 0 0 5

Deemed University 0 4 0 1 5

Affiliated college 1 4 0 1 6

Autonomous 2 2 2 3 9


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Total 3 15 2 5 25

Universities and affiliated colleges to the University offer Entrepreneurship as Compulsory course, as most

of the Universities recognize Entrepreneurship as one of the essential subject to be taught. Even though

autonomous colleges have the freedom, some of them are yet to offer courses on Entrepreneurship. More

forward looking autonomous institutes offer this as both compulsory and elective courses. Some institutes

also offer Entrepreneurship as a full credit course.

Affiliation and Number of courses offered

Table 02: Affiliation and Number of courses offered

Number of Courses Total

No

Courses

One

course

Two

Courses

More than

two courses

Affiliation University 0 2 3 0 5




Total 3 8 10 4 25

Many autonomous institutes offer more than one course on Entrepreneurship and offer many new electives.

This is a positive sign to create a better academic ecosystem and produce entrepreneurs from campuses.

Some of the electives offered are:

Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development

Business Design

Entrepreneurship Development programme


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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Affiliation and freedom to design the course

Table 03: Affiliation of the Institute and freedom to design the course

Designed by Total

No course University Faculty

Independent

body

Affiliation University 0 4 0 1 5




Total 3 8 6 8 25

Autonomous colleges offer more number of courses in Entrepreneurship than affiliated colleges. This is

done to cater to larger audience of students by offering different types of courses. Most of the faculty in

University affiliated institutes have expressed that an independent body for designing the course would add

more rigour and updation to the content.

Part II

Course Content and Pedagogical tools

The faculty affiliated to the university do not have the freedom in the curriculum design or evaluation

pattern. But, most of them have resorted to interesting mix of pedagogical tools like workshops, exercises,

games, psychometric tools, interaction with entrepreneurs etc along with lecture methods.

Autonomous institutes however have all the freedom to design the contents and pedagogical tools to

deliver the same. The core contents of the syllabi are:

Theories and concepts on Entrepreneurship


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Entrepreneurial traits

Idea generation

Opportunity evaluation

Business Plan

Financing the venture

Marketing / operational strategies

Apart for these some of the institutes also include in their syllabi the following contents:

Women entrepreneurship

Problems of SSIs

Financial Institutions providing support

Growth strategies

Exit strategies

Valuation of a venture

Franchising

Training and EDP

Registering the firm

HR Strategies etc.

Pedagogical Innovations: Some Examples

NITIE, Mumbai : NITIE Center for Student Enterprises (NCSE), Mumbai, is an Entrepreneurship

Development Center launched in the year 2007 with full funding of by DST, NSTEDB, Government of

India. NCSE has initiated a unique pedagogy called Student Enterpris es for achieving learning


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effectiveness in academics. Every student who join the MBA course must start an enterprise. Mandi and

Hamara Dhandha are the names of this innovative pedagogy

Mandi @ NITIE incorporates the following:

A field Sales Experience

Hamara Dhandha: Student Enterprise Pedagogy and much more.

With "Mandi", NITIE made a statement about its pedagogy - the experiential method of teaching.

Mount Carmel Bangalore : adopts both formal (theory in class room) and informal approaches (through

E-Cell) to teach entrepreneurship. About 700 undergraduate students undergo Entrepreneurship as either

core/ elective or credit course. Every student participate in the Rs 50 game to understand the building of

business models, and they also write business plans as part of the curriculum. The success of E- Cell

activities initiated the starting of a student venture on campus Myriad Co Ltd., with the intention of giving

students hands on experience of conceptualizing, ideating, creating and running an organization in the true

style of an entrepreneur. The company manufactures and sells Chalks on campus and publishes an Ad

Based Youth Magazine.

IFIM Business School, Bangalore : The profit from Rs.100 game , is effectively engaged in organizing the

Mentors and students meet at a City Hotel where all the entrepreneur/mentor share their wisdom and

lessons on entrepreneurship in panel discussions followed by a gala network dinner. Besides this each

students group prepare Business Plan of their choice and an entrepreneur from the same or related domain

is allocated to the group as a mentor. After a month of mentorship, students pitch their idea to a Venture

Capitalist and get guidance.

Most effective pedagogical tools:Mentoring by entrepreneurs, simulations, experiential learning tools like Rs. 50/ Rs.100 games, stories

from entrepreneurs and workshops are some of the most preferred tools to impart entrepreneurial education

to students. These exercises and games allow the students to brainstorm and come up with many new


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business ideas in and around their institutes, help to evaluate opportunities and work as a team, analyse

their success/critical factors etc. Hands-on experience is more important to learn entrepreneurship than

mere classroom lectures and assignments. Continuous interactions with entrepreneurs have a positive

impact among students to make Entrepreneurship as their career choice.

Mentoring as a pedagogical tool:

Developing a business plan is a critical component in the evaluation of the course. The Business plans and

their quality could be improved by assigning entrepreneurs as mentors to students. However following

table shows very few faculties assign such mentors to students either due to lack of such mentors or lack of

networking with entrepreneurs.

Table and Pie chart 04: Institutes offering Mentoring as pedagogy

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid No mentoring 16 64.0 64.0 64.0

Mentoring given 9 36.0 36.0 100.0

Total 25 100.0 100.0

Part III


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Impact of Entrepreneurship teaching on Students and Faculty

Even though, impact is many fold and quite difficult to quantify, the researchers have looked into the

following aspects:

1. Change of mindset of students who attend Entrepreneurship courses.

2. Entrepreneurship courses help the students even in better placements and make them more

confident in life.

3. An entrepreneurial faculty is an asset to any institute. He/she delivers the subjects with more

passion and involvement, since the faculty who teaches this subject has a greater role to play as they

are helping to build future entrepreneurs.

Impact on students

We do understand that not all students exposed to entrepreneurship education will become entrepreneurs

and establish business, but will surely lead to their personality appraisal, creativity boosting and the

students ability to anticipate and respond to societal changes

Table 05: Cumulative impact of Entrepreneurship courses on students

Statements N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Students are excited to attend

entrepreneurship course25 1 3 1.76 .779

Improves students confidence 25 1 2 1.32 .476

Better placement opportunities 25 1 5 2.24 1.012

Positive attitude to work with startups 25 1 4 2.16 .943

Intentions to start a venture 25 1 5 1.96 1.020

Valid N (list wise) 25


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Faculties are of the opinion that, the course makes the students more confident, create a positive attitude,

and improves the intentions to start a venture. However they are of the opinion that it has very less impact

on plac ements. Students mindset towards working in start -ups has also not much changed.

Impact on Faculty:

The process of implementing the course curriculum using meaningful pedagogical approach is a major

challenge for educators. This requires change in attitude and teaching/learning styles relevant with the

changing world of education and work. Teaching Entrepreneurship using innovative pedagogical tools has

a definite impact on the faculty as well.

H0: Entrepreneurship courses make the faculty more entrepreneurial.

Ha: Entrepreneurship courses do not have any such impact.

Table 06: One-Sample Statistics

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 0

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of

the Difference

Lower Upper

Teaching

Entrepreneurship makes

me more Entrepreneurial

11.066 24 .000 1.440 1.17 1.71

As per the calculations above, it is proven that Entrepreneurship courses make the faculty more

Entrepreneurial.

Using Likert scale, the impact of teaching Entrepreneurship course on faculty was asked. The findings are

as below:

Table 07: Cumulative impact of Entrepreneurship course on faculty


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Impact N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Makes me more entrepreneurial 25 1 3 1.44 .651

Pedagogy impact in teaching other

subjects25 1 5 2.28 1.242

Improved networking 25 1 3 1.56 .712

Teaching Entrepreneurship is

challenging25 1 5 1.80 1.118

Valid N (list wise) 25

As the table suggests, there is a positive impact on Networking and making them more entrepreneurial in

terms of creating course contents, improving teaching skills, interaction with industry and other faculty

members. However, teaching entrepreneurship poses many challenges to the faculty in terms of mobilising

Areas of improvement :

Funding:

Exploring and implementing new pedagogical tools requires financial support. Identifying funding courses

and obtaining funds seems to be one of the monumental tasks faced by our faculty. Very few institutes

have funds raised from various sources.

Table 08: Funding Availability

No.of Institutes

(Frequency) Percent

Valid

Percent

Cumulative

Percent

Valid No Funding available 21 84.0 84.0 84.0

Funding available 4 16.0 16.0 100.0

Total 25 100.0 100.0


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Sadly, out of 25 Institutes only 4 of them seems to have some amount of funding.

Some of the Universities / Colleges which has funding for running Entrepreneurship related courses are as

follows:

EILM University has created a corpus fund of Rs.20 Lakh per year,

NITTIE Mumbai, has funding from DST

Alumni funding

All other institutes have used either student fund or institutes fund to conduct entrepreneurship related

programmes. The time is ripe that Government and Companies to come forward to fund Entrepreneurship

activities at Colleges.

Training on Teaching Entrepreneurship:

Most of the faculty whom we have interviewed for the purpose of this research were trained by National

Entrepreneurship Network, a non profit organization which trains faculty in teaching high impact

entrepreneurship courses in campuses. One of their flagship programme called EEC (Entrepreneurship

Educators Programme) is very popular and more than 1000 faculty are trained under this programme. ISB

Hyderabad also provides such training programme for faculty called as EEDC (Entrepreneurship Educators


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Development Course). EDI (Entrepreneurship development Institutes of India), MITCON are some of the

other organizations who conduct regular courses on the same.

Table 09: Training programmes in Entrepreneurship

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Valid NEN 17 68.0 68.0 68.0

NEN and

ISB6 24.0 24.0 92.0

EDI 1 4.0 4.0 96.0

Others 1 4.0 4.0 100.0

Total 25 100.0 100.0

Research Output of faculty:

As teaching Entrepreneurship is not like any other subjects, faculty who teach this subject must have

either enough industry and teaching experience, or enough research experience on developing case studies,

course materials or writing Business Plans. Networking with entrepreneurial community is essential to

teach this subject more effectively.

Pie chart 10: facultys contribution towards entrepreneurial research output


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Support needed

Most of the faculty also opines that having unstinted support from Management is essential for the

success of Entrepreneurship related activities and courses in campuses. Some of them suggest that

entrepreneurship as a subject needs to be taught from school level to sow the seed early through a student,

rather than introducing the subject in later years. Collaborative teaching and knowing about other

campuses activities can create a better learning environment . This resource sharing is required so that

entrepreneurship educators can learn from one another and work together to raise the bar for all. This will

surely enhance the drive to attract, nurture and sustain an entrepreneurial culture.

6.0 A Comprehensive pedagogical Model for Entrepreneurship and New

Venture Creation:

This model takes into consideration an academic ecosystem to conduct Entrepreneurship related courses

and activities in campuses. Most of the colleges have besides courses on Entrepreneurship an E-Cell

(Entrepreneurship Cell) which conducts a series of activities like workshops, entrepreneurs talks,


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seminars, competitions etc. This definitely boost the entrepreneurial spirit among students and act as

driving force to join Entrepreneurship related courses especially if they are offered as electives.

7.0 Conclusion

Academic ecosystem promoting Entrepreneurship is still very primitive in India. We need to create

environment with networking opportunities with entrepreneurs and investors like as in Silicon Valley,

where academic institutions and start-ups work very closely. Some of the suggestions from the faculty who

teach Entrepreneurship courses are as follows.


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1. Collaboration with entrepreneurs to teach and develop case studies and mentoring support,

2. Networking with faculties from other campuses to understand and share experience and knowledge,

3. Unstinted support from management,

4. Support in funding from either public or private institutions,

5.

More involvement from alumni in terms of funding and mentoring,

6. Training the faculty on Entrepreneurship and developing an integrated course curriculum.

The researchers find that there are three categories of Entrepreneurship programmes run in our Educational

Universities.

1. Non-Entrepreneurial : Here Entrepreneurship is taught like any other subjects, using more of

lecture methods and with very little scope for experiential learning. Faculty neither introduces new

and emerging contents in the field of entrepreneurship nor experiments any new pedagogical

innovations even after attending training programmes.

2. Moderately entrepreneurial : The faculty teaches Entrepreneurship as a standalone course, with

less scope of integrating with other subjects. However, due to the training received or their

entrepreneurial nature, they use a mix of interesting pedagogical tools in making the course more

experiential.3. Highly Entrepreneurial : The highest form of entrepreneurial teaching, where Entrepreneurship is

taught not as a subject but as a mindset and integrates the entire activities of the Institutes around

being more entrepreneurial. Students have given hand-on experience not only during the course but

during their stay at the institutes. Faculty at these institutes are more passionate about propagating

entrepreneurship.

True entrepreneurship education provides opportunities for youth to master the core entrepreneurial

competencies of opportunity recognition, idea generation, venture creation and critical thinking.

Entrepreneurship is the new Buzzword in our campuses recently. However most important hurdle to teach

and learn entrepreneurship is the prevailing mindset among students and faculty. There is definite need of


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revamping the pedagogical tools used to teach this. More than the students, it is the faculty who need to be

excited about the Entrepreneurship as whole which would contagiously/ infectiously pass on to students as

well. Teaching is an exercise in entrepreneurship itself!

1 Abstract from final proceedings, OSLO 2006, Entrepreneurship Education in Europe Fostering

entrepreneurial mindsets through education and learning , P 94

2 The ASPEN Institute YESG: Advancing entrepreneurship education

3 Final report of the expert group Education for Entrepreneruship by European Commission, 2005 Pp

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4 The newsletter of EFMDs Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Small Business Network, 2004, Issue 2

5Benson Honig, Wilfrid Laurier University and The University of Haifa, 2004, Entrepreneurship

Education: Toward a model of contingency- based Business Planning , Academy of Management Learning

and Education, Vol. 3, No. 3, 258 273.

6 Anil K Gupta, (IIMA), 2005, Pedag ogical innovations for triggering social and economic

Entrepreneruship among youth

7 http://www.nitie.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=508&Itemid=422

8 Entrepreneruship Education - Learning by doing Kauffman foundation

9. Margaret Emalereta Akpomi, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, (2008)

Entrepreneruship among graduates -to-be of Business/Management Faculties and Economic

Development In Nigeria , European Journal of Economics ISSN 1450-2887 Issue 14

10. www.nenonline.org
http://www.nitie.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=508&Itemid=422http://www.nitie.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=508&Itemid=422http://www.nitie.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=508&Itemid=422http://www.nenonline.org/http://www.nenonline.org/http://www.nenonline.org/http://www.nenonline.org/http://www.nitie.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=508&Itemid=422

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Pedagogical Innovations in Entrepreneurship_A Research Paper