Group Size
?
1.) Small group (teams of 4-6)
2.) Individual Task
3.) Large Group
4.) Any
Small group (teams of 4-6)
Learning Environment
?
1.) Lecture Theatre
2.) Presentation Space
3.) Carousel Tables (small working group)
4.) Any
5.) Outside
6.) Special
Carousel Tables (small working group)
QAA Enterprise Theme(s)
?
1.) Creativity and Innovation
2.) Opportunity recognition, creation and evaluation
3.) Decision making supported by critical analysis and judgement
4.) Implementation of ideas through leadership and management
5.) Reflection and Action
6.) Interpersonal Skills
7.) Communication and Strategy
2Opportunity recognition‚ creation and evaluation
5Reflection and Action
The focus within this activity is on investigating staff understanding of, and attitudes towards and experiences of providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education. The resultant data can suggest/expose opportunities for, and critical barriers to, engaging more staff in providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship opportunities.
This activity was designed to be used with staff in the arts, humanities and sciences, to investigate, and to facilitate participating staff reflections on, staff understanding of, attitudes towards and experiences of enterprise and entrepreneurship education. These subject areas were targeted based on evidence of lower in-curricular provision of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in comparison to business-related subject areas (e.g., Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 2013), suggestive of comparatively lower staff engagement in providing enterprise or entrepreneurship education. The activity brings together staff engaged in providing enterprise or entrepreneurship education and enables the sharing of experiences (including good practice and enabling opportunities), encouraging the development of an institutional community of practice (Michels et al. 2018). This activity can also reveal critical barriers perceived by staff who describe themselves as not engaged in providing enterprise or entrepreneurship education, which in turn can assist institutions in understanding and addressing those barriers so as to increase staff engagement in, and thereby expand and enhance, enterprise or entrepreneurship education provision.
The dataset arising from the use of this activity at Oxford Brookes University and at the University of Birmingham in spring and summer 2022, as part of the Enterprise Educators EUK Research Project ‘Increasing Engagement with Enterprise Education in the Arts, Humanities and Sciences’, is available online (see references - Macrae, Hook and Scrob, 2022). An associated project report summarising the analysis of the research findings, based on these data, will be published online by Enterprise Educators UK in summer 2022.
Using the guide, the discussion takes, on average, between 60 and 90 minutes. There are two variants of the focus group discussion guide: a screening question solicits whether staff feel that they are not engaged with providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education or are not sure, in which case they take part in a focus group which follows focus group discussion guide 1, or if they feel that they are engaged with providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education, in which case they take part in a focus group which follows focus group discussion guide 2. The focus group discussion guides were pilot tested and ethically approved at the University of Birmingham and Oxford Brookes University, and subsequently conducted with staff at both institutions in the spring and summer of 2022.
If you use this resource, the authors would greatly appreciate it if you could get in touch to outline the use and impact, to support impact tracking. Please email Dr. Andrea Macrae at andrea.macrae@brookes.ac.uk if so. Thank you.
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FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE 1 – for use with staff who describe themselves as not engaged in providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education.
[Opening remarks; invite participants to introduce themselves.]
We’re going to begin by discussing what entrepreneurial education is. So firstly….
1. What do you understand by entrepreneurial education?
Now we would like to look at some examples of teaching practices from entrepreneurial education and get your feedback on them.
2. Example 1: The use of workshops to undertake small scale live projects. One example of this is a workshop in which (i) the local city council, or a local museum/gallery/library/theatre/charity, etc., provides information about problems and challenges with regards to community engagement, and then (ii) groups work together to generate possible responses and solutions to these problems and challenges.
a) Do you do this kind of thing in your own teaching, or would you consider doing this?
b) What are, or what would be, the main barriers to you doing thing kind of thing in your own teaching? We are interested in everyone’s thoughts on this, whether you would or wouldn’t do this kind of thing in your teaching, or are already doing so.
3. Example 2: A research project in which students work in teams to identify and critically assess significant gaps in research, and then they collaboratively design a research project which could address one of those gaps.
a) Do you do this kind of thing in your own teaching, or would you consider doing something like this?
b) What are, or would be, the main barriers to doing something like this in your own teaching? Again, we are interested in everyone’s thoughts on this, whether you would or wouldn’t do this kind of thing in your teaching, or are already doing so.
4. Example 3: A module dedicated to the design of an innovative start up (which could be commercial, social, cultural, green, not-for-profit, etc.) relevant to the students’ discipline, and the planning processes that would be involved in bringing it to launch (e.g., risk analysis, financial planning, stakeholder management planning, etc.).
a) Do you do this kind of thing in your own teaching, or would you consider doing something like this?
b) What are, or would be, the main barriers to doing something like this in your own teaching? Again, we are interested in everyone’s thoughts on this, whether you would or wouldn’t do this kind of thing in your teaching, or are already doing so.
Next, to give you a little more detail and maybe some inspiration, we’re going to share with you some definitions of entrepreneurial education based on QAA guidance. The QAA breaks entrepreneurial education down into enterprise education and entrepreneurship education, so we are just going to run through both. It’s fine if you don’t agree with or share the QAA understanding of the terms enterprise and entrepreneurship: the terms are used loosely and there are different understandings of them.
Enterprise Education provides students with a) an enhanced capacity to generate ideas, and b) the behaviours, attributes, and competencies to make them happen.
Enterprise competencies:
• include things like identifying opportunities, creative problem solving, innovating, decision making, strategic thinking, flexibility, negotiating and influencing.
• can be embedded in any discipline, through activities such as experiential learning (e.g., simulations, live projects), authentic assessments (e.g., a white paper), and small- scale focussed activities (e.g., group creative problem solving).
Entrepreneurship Education builds upon and applies enterprising competencies to the process of designing new business ventures or start-ups.
Entrepreneurship competencies:
• build on enterprise competencies by adding knowledge of business, finance, intellectual property and legal awareness, digital marketing, risk management, negotiation skills and influencing/ networking skills.
• can sometimes be found in standalone modules which are more focussed on innovation/start-up, self-employment and/or growing an existing venture.
Competencies associated with enterprise and entrepreneurship can be considered a subset of broader employability competencies.
Now we want to get your thoughts on a scenario. You can use the ways QAA describe enterprise and entrepreneurship education for inspiration if it helps, but there is no need to agree or align with their descriptions.
5. Imagine you have been asked to embed enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education into some of your teaching. If you are already doing this, imagine you have been asked to embed some more. How would you embed it? We’ll have one minute thinking time and then we’d like to hear ideas about what you might like to do in your own subject/teaching context.
Now we want you to consider the ways QAA use the terms enterprise and entrepreneurship education again, even if you don’t agree with them, and we want to ask you the same question we asked you when you agreed to take part in the focus groups. We want to see if your answer would be different if you were thinking in terms of the QAA definitions.
6. So, thinking in terms of the QAA view of these concepts, are you engaged in any way in enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education?
Finally, we’d like to get a sense of your feelings about enterprise and entrepreneurship education.
7. Should enterprise and entrepreneurship education be part of the HE curriculum? [Expand on question: in your discipline? in HE generally? Please tell us why/why not?]
8. What, if anything, would motivate you to engage more with enterprise and entrepreneurship education, or enable you to engage more with it?
[Summary and closing comments]
END OF FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE 1.
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FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE 2 - for use with staff who describe themselves as engaged in providing enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education.
[Opening remarks; invite participants to introduce themselves.]
We’re going to begin by discussing what entrepreneurial education is. So firstly….
1. What do you understand by entrepreneurial education?
Definitions are important in making sure that we are talking about the same thing. The QAA breaks entrepreneurial education down into enterprise education and entrepreneurship education, so we are just going to run through both. It’s fine if you don’t agree with or share the QAA understanding of the terms enterprise and entrepreneurship: the terms are used loosely and there are different understandings of them. This is just so that we have a common ground for the discussions going forward: Introduced through PowerPoint: one slide per each concept, with a couple of bullet points for each
Enterprise Education provides students with a) an enhanced capacity to generate ideas, and b) the behaviours, attributes, and competencies to make them happen.
Enterprise competencies:
• include things like identifying opportunities, creative problem solving, innovating, decision making, strategic thinking, flexibility, negotiating and influencing.
• can be embedded in any discipline, through activities such as experiential learning (e.g., simulations, live projects), authentic assessments (e.g., a white paper), and small- scale focussed activities (e.g., group creative problem solving).
Entrepreneurship Education builds upon and applies enterprising competencies to the process of designing new business ventures or start-ups.
Entrepreneurship competencies:
• build on enterprise competencies by adding knowledge of business, finance, intellectual property and legal awareness, digital marketing, risk management, negotiation skills and influencing/ networking skills.
• can sometimes be found in standalone modules which are more focussed on innovation/start-up, self-employment and/or growing an existing venture.
Competencies associated with enterprise and entrepreneurship can be considered a subset of broader employability competencies.
Next, we would like to get a sense of your own engagement with enterprise and entrepreneurship education. With the definitions from just before in mind,
2. Do you consider yourself to be engaged in any way in enterprise and/or entrepreneurship education?
3. For those of you who answered yes, what are some examples of you doing this?
4. What motivated you to do these things?
[Repeat questions 3 and 4 until everyone who wishes to contribute, does so]
5. For others who haven’t yet done these kinds of things but are interested in doing something similar, what motivates you to do so?
Now it would be useful to know more about your experiences of providing enterprise or entrepreneurship education, including successes, challenges, and so on. So,
6. For those of you who are providing such enterprise or entrepreneurship education, what have you found to work well? [can be adapted in case someone previously provided enterprise or entrepreneurship education but no longer does so]
7. [Follow up question – depending on what was mentioned already]: What was the student experience, satisfaction, reflection of gains, etc.? What was the student performance like? What was it like for the educator/provider?
8. In your experience of providing these kinds of enterprise or entrepreneurship experiences, what has worked less well and why?'
9. For those of you who are providing enterprise or entrepreneurship education, what kinds of barriers are you experiencing in doing this?
10. For those of you who haven’t yet provided enterprise and entrepreneurship education, but are hoping/planning to, what potential challenges/barriers can you foresee that others haven’t mentioned so far?
[From the answers to question 10, compile a list of all the challenges/barriers. Present these on a slide/in the online chat and share them with participants as part of the next question.]
We now have a number of barriers and challenges that you have mentioned in relation to providing enterprise and entrepreneurship education.
11. Which of these are the top three challenges for you in your practice, and can you rank them?
12. Thinking more generally, what would be the one thing that would better enable your peers to provide enterprise or entrepreneurship educational experiences?
Finally,
13. Would you be happy for us to contact you after the focus group to gather some samples of entrepreneurial education activities so we can get a picture of good practice?
[Summary and closing comments]
END OF FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE 2.
Further notes on the focus group discussion guide design:
Consultancy model – sector/industry projects - Professional Research Skills module project
Activity:
West Midlands Police Positive Action Coordinator:
"How do we re-brand WMP and our positive action team to make it more appealing to our BAME communities and younger generation, as the current entry routes are most certainly more preferential to the younger applicant? This is to recruit 1000 more BAME officers for the West Midlands."
Students apply research skills along with creative problem-solving through design thinking methodology to conduct a piece of research and analyse data in a problem-orientated manner in order to provide innovative solutions.
Assessment:
Credit: This module was designed by Dr. Ruth Page (Department of English Language and Linguistics, University of Birmingham) supported by Helen Hook (Careers Network, University of Birmingham) and various industry partners. The problem statement was provided by Adeeb Redman (Positive Action Coordinator for West Midlands Police).
This activity supports participant self-reflection with respect to professional identities as enterprise and entrepreneurship educators, and evaluation of enterprise and entrepreneurship pedagogical practices.
The focus group discussion guides were designed for facilitation in online contexts. However, if conducted face to face, additional resources such as post its and pens can be useful.
Slides presenting the QAA definitions of enterprise and entrepreneurship education, and the sample of entrepreneurial education activities for review, as a minimum, though all questions can also be presented on slides to support clarity of communication.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (2013). Enterprise Education Impact in Higher Education and Further Education: Final Report. Available at:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208715/bis-13-904-enterprise-education-impact-in-higher-education-and-further-education.pdf
Macrae, A., Hook, H. and Scrob, M. (2022). Increasing Engagement with Enterprise Education in the Arts, Humanities and Sciences EEUK Research Project Dataset [Data set]. RADAR, Oxford Brookes University. Available at: doi.org/10.24384/epye-sj79
Michels, N., Beresford, R., Beresford, K. & Handley, K. (2018). 'From fluctuation and fragility to innovation and sustainability: the role of a member network in UK enterprise education’, Industry and Higher Education 32 (6): 438-450
QAA (2018). Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK Higher Education Providers. Gloucester: The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
