based exercise?’ And ‘How does a visual-based exercise affect the didaktik
relationships in entrepreneurship education when used to elicit students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship?’ Below I discuss each of the questions in relation to the findings from the four sub-studies. The didaktik triangle is used as an analytical tool to examine the findings and I use phenomenographic didaktik
as my theoretical perspective.
5.1
Using a visual-based exercise to elicit students’
preconceptions of entrepreneurship
In this section the first question ‘What are students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship and how can these be elicited using a visual-based exercise?’ is discussed. The first part of the question is primarily discussed in relation to the
findings from sub-study 1, while the latter part of the question is addressed by taking into account the different perspectives that emerged in sub-studies 2–4. The first sub-study, conducted with students from a variety of educational disciplines, shows a discrepancy between established understandings of entrepreneurship and students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship. The most common way that the students described their preconceptions of entrepreneurship was in how they perceived ‘the entrepreneur’ – primarily in positive ways. The students described entrepreneurs using terms such as energetic, solution-focused
and hardworking. These entrepreneurial skills and attitudes are similar to the ways in which entrepreneurship has been discussed and defined, as well as criticized and problematised in the field (Berglund & Verduyn, 2018; Dahlstedt & Hertzberg, 2012). Thus, the students represent a lay perspective which can be further elaborated in entrepreneurship education in order to broaden their knowledge in line with contemporary research.
Another main area highlighted by the students is the way in which entrepreneurship is conducted. In this respect, the students clearly emphasised collective working methods. For example, the students largely associated entrepreneurship with teamwork and collaboration which, in a sense, is the opposite of the image of the entrepreneur as a ‘lonely hero’(Bruni et al., 2004; Byrne et al., 2014; Clarke & Holt, 2017; Gartner, 1990; Liñán, 2007; Ogbor, 2000; Sköld & Tillmar, 2015). This indicates that entrepreneurship can be perceived as being both individualistic and collective by students in the same group – a situation which, thus far, has not been taken into account to any great extent in entrepreneurship education research.
Other areas that distinguish the students’ way of defining entrepreneurship from how it has been described as a subject in educational contexts are value creation and organisation creation (Matthews, 2018, p. xviii; Neck & Corbett, 2018). Students’ preconceptions seldom concern the outcomes of entrepreneurship. Even though the terms ‘company’ and ‘business’ appear in the material, the students rarely mentioned value creation and organisation creation. When providing examples of entrepreneurial activities, the students also showed that they had a broad understanding of entrepreneurship. For example, the students talked about social entrepreneurship and voiced criticisms about more traditional forms of entrepreneurship. Sub-studies 2 and 3 describe how the teachers were surprised that the students expressed such far-sighted images of entrepreneurship. The differences in the students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship did not primarily appear to depend on their own particular educational programme. Rather, differences between male and female students emerged in the empirical material. This became visible in the themes they highlighted as being characteristic of entrepreneurship and the ways in which they chose to describe their preconceptions.
Overall, the students’ material presented in sub-study 1 shows that the students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship is multifaceted. This implies that
students start their learning journey from various locations and with different kinds of support needs in order to achieve the course objectives. In sub-studies 2–4, ‘transmediation’ between visuality and the spoken and written word (Siegel, 1995) is embodied in a visual-based exercise that proved to be a suitable method for identifying the location of these starting points. For example, in sub-study 3, entrepreneurship educators described how the visual-based exercise gave them insight into the students’ perspectives, thereby creating an awareness of the similarities and differences in the students’ preconceptions. The students who participated in sub-study 4 confirmed that the exercise contributed to making their implicit entrepreneurship theories more explicit, i.e. inviting the students to attach meaning to the learning content (Fletcher, 2018). Consequently, the students and teachers stated that using photos to elicit preconceptions was a way of achieving increased awareness of how these various perspectives constituted starting points for every single learning process in entrepreneurship education settings. Both the designer and the interviewed teachers and students believed that the exercise truly elicited the students’ most honest beliefs and could therefore be a way of examining how the students’ various preconceptions could differ from each other, as well as to the learning objectives and the understandings of the teacher (Carrier, 2007; Fayolle, 2018; Fayolle & Gailly, 2008; Hedin, 2006; Nabi et al., 2017; Shepherd, 2004; Volkmann, 2004).
Overall, the findings contributed to diversifying the understanding of entrepreneurship in educational settings, while the sub-studies simultaneously developed the knowledge of the different actors’ (students, teachers and educational designers) understanding of the visual-based exercise.
Thus, one of the results of this work is the design of the visual exercise presented and evaluated in the sub-studies. Having been tested in the classrooms, it transpired that the exercise was a relevant tool for visualising students’ preconceptions of entrepreneurship – and as a research method. This is not because of the pictorial motifs per se but is because of the ambiguity and breadth of the set of photos. This insight confirms that it is the way in which photographic material pose open-ended questions rather than their respective motif that is crucial for involving participants using photo elicitation (Collier & Collier, 1986; Rose, 2016). Because of the ‘open’ nature of the visual-based exercise, which offers scope for reflection, the students were confident enough to challenge each other and the teacher’s expectations. In sub-study 4, the students stated that they were able to freely interpret when they described their understanding of entrepreneurship by interpreting a photo. Also, their interpretations appeared to link their understanding of entrepreneurship to their own lifeworlds (Kroksmark, 2007) and through their choice of photo they presented themselves and their experiences in relation to the concept. For example, they stated that their preconceptions were based on their own working life experiences, entrepreneurs they knew or impressions of entrepreneurs they have gleaned from the media. The designer wanted the compilation of photos used in the exercise to be multifaceted
enough to offer opportunities for free interpretation. Here, the students and teachers agreed that the photos were not limiting, but also that it was the visual- based educational design, rather than the specific photos, that contributed to the students’ ability to express breadth in their understanding of entrepreneurship that went beyond the norm, and included both more established and critical perspectives.