Development of students’ enterprising skills and capabilities in NSW Commerce classes: teachers’ perspectives of outcomes, pedagogies and barriers to implementation
posted on 2022-03-28, 12:05authored byShani H. Hartley
Enterprise education is conducted in a wide variety of formats at schools and universities in many countries. Recent research into the pedagogical approaches and student outcomes has mainly occurred in Europe at the higher education level. Studies are being conducted in schools but there is a need to investigate the teaching of enterprising skills and capabilities in Australian schools. Research in this area could help school leadership make decisions about developing teachers’ pedagogical skills for the purpose of enterprise education. This thesis investigates how teachers perceive the development of students’ enterprising skills and capabilities in terms of student outcomes, best-practice pedagogy, self-reported enactment and barriers to implementing enterprise education. The study is based on the framework of pedagogical content knowledge and explores possible signature pedagogies. A questionnaire completed by NSW Commerce teachers, producing quantitative and qualitative data, forms the foundation of the research. The findings show considerable alignment between teachers’ perceived benefits of enterprise education and those reported in literature. They also reveal an enactment gap, particularly involving pedagogy for active learning. Factors within the school context, such as time, appear to be barriers to implementation. Signature pedagogies were unable to be determined at this time.