The importance of entrepreneurial role models in shaping the entrepreneurial ...
Maslo crebus presentation
1. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION-A PRIORITY FOR
THE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
8 - 9 OCTOBER 2012 BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
The central role of educational leadership for developing students´
intrapreneurship attitudes in Higher education settings: a case study from Latvia
Dr. habil. paed. Prof. Irina Maslo, Dr. paed. Manuel J. Fernández González
Scientific Institute of Pedagogy, University of Latvia
irina.maslo@lu.lv, manuels.fernandezs@lu.lv
2. Contents
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical frame
3. Methodology
4. Main Findings
5. Conclusions and Discussion
2
6. Student’s involvement with e-tools
Teleconference
Chat rooms
Forums
E-materials
didactical Chat room about organizational questions
guidelines
E-mail
communication
Phone
communication
E-phone
(Skype)
Forum about study process
News forum
Social forum
Forum about each
module
Chat room about each
Forum about Educational Treatment of Diversity
module
Forum about problems in use of computers, e-platform and other IT
6
8. In-depth study of educational leadership theory
Witziers, B., R. Bosker and M. Kruger (2003). “Educational Leadership and Student Achievement: the Elusive
Search for an Association”. Educational Administration Quarterly, vol. 39.
Leithwood, K., et al. (2004). How Leadership Influences Student Learning. Minneapolis, Minn.: Centre for Applied
Research and Educational Improvement, University of Minnesota.
Ross, J. and P. Gray (2006). “School Leadership and Student Achievement: The Mediating Effects of Teacher
Beliefs”. Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 29.
Day, C., et al. (2009). The Impact of School Leadership on Pupil Outcomes, Research Report DCSF-RR108,
University of Nottingham.
Bush, T. and D. Glover (2004). Leadership Development: Evidence and Beliefs. Nottingham: National College for
School Leadership,.
Schleicher, A. (Ed.) (2012). Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: Lessons from
around the World. OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264xxxxxx-en [Accessed on
25.08.2012]
Rivera, C.A. (2010). Building a Model of Leadership Development for Times of Change. Summary of the Promotion
Paper for promotion to the degree of Doctor in Administration (Dr.admin.), University of Latvia. Riga:
University of Latvia.
Gento, S. (2000). Instituciones Educativas para la Calidad Total. Madrid: La Muralla.
Antoncic, B. and Hisrich, R.D. (2003). “Clarifying the intrapreneurship concept”, Journal of Small Business and
Enterprise Development, 10 (1), pp. 7-24.
9. Pedagogical leadership styles
• Visionary Contextualization of the contents
Ability of motivating
Giving sense to the study process
Ability of creating learning community,
Explaining learning processes
• Strategic Encouraging internal communication processes
Foreseeing and formulating problems, solutions
Creating synergies between students
• Catalyser Fostering students’ reflection
Decision-making abilities
Evaluation and personal initiative
• Doer Giving information to others. 9
11. Methodology
The empirical study
• written participation of 8 university teachers and 36 Master’s students during four
years (2008-2012).
• A sequential mix-design (initial explorative quantitative study followed by an in-
depth qualitative analysis of selected cases)
• Written data were collected from the Moodle platform of the Master’s program,
using the function “reports”
• The 18 modules of the Interuniversity Masters’ program “Educational Treatment
of Diversity” were analysed:
• 2752 student interventions
• 1023 teacher interventions
• The level of students’ intrapreneurship has been measured though the analysis of
their contribution to the improvement of the quality of the study processes
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16. Catalyser
• “I have read your opinions with interest. However, I think
that the rest of the students could retire a bigger benefit
if everyone give the reasons of his/her opinion, for
example, quoting some of the scientific research in the
field of inclusion in your respective country, or analysing
your own experience” (by G - Wednesday, 15
February 2012, 05:39 PM);
• “I suggest you to start by having a look to the forum of
the students’ of last year, this should enhance our
thinking and help to understand better the things to do”
(by F - Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 06:51 PM).
16
17. Strategic
• “Congratulation to XX and YY as first in-loger !!! … Dear XX and
YY, please contact the students of you group for supporting them
to access to Moodle by experience exchange tomorrow !!!! (by B -
Tuesday, 30 August 2011, 07:11 PM).
• “…Why hesitating? Yours is a very nice plan to investigate the
situation and to find new ideas. Of course, other ideas are also
possible; is there anyone that can propose other ways? Diversity of
situations and different approaches to solve the problems enriches
our experience!” (by B - Wednesday, 3rd March 2010, 4:10
PM)
17
18. Doer
“Dear all, please follow XX’s suggestion - try to conclude the
discussion and make a conclusion! There are some more activities
to complete!!!” (Doer style, by F - Monday, 10 October 2011,
12:53 PM).
Visionary
“Hello, YY, thanks for this question. Exactly! Tools from this module in
the future can be adapted to your specific situation. The Latvian
students need to adapt too, since we began studying together to
explore our differences and learn to use those as an enriching
factor of the whole study process rather than an obstacle”.
(Visionary style, by B, - Wednesday, 24th February 2010, 3:14
PM) 18
19. Summarizing the results
Pedagogical leadership of faculty members, whose
students’ have the highest intrapreneurship, is
based on their ability of team-working: combing
different styles of leadership for
• creating a learning community (strategic leadership
style) and
• fostering students’ reflection (catalyser leadership
style).
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20. Some recommendations
Creating teams of educational leaders that complement
effectively each other in the work with students
Provoking the release of the energy existing in students
(self evaluation activities, questioning, building
content and organization on students’ proposals)
Human contact and diversifying the channels of
communication to create an online Learning
Community.
Non multa sed multum (not too much communication,
but with good quality)
21. Pedagogical leadership
Critical reflection of organization and evaluation of trans-cultural
-communication processes in new and unknown situations using 3-
5 languages and ICT
Capability Critical reflection of organization and evaluation of learning
as constructivist processes of new and unknown Capacity
knowledge etc.
Networking and Team working for facilitating of
collaboration processes
21
This paper addresses the relation between the educational leadership of university teachers and the development of students’ intrapreneurship attitudes during their Master’s studies.
Students’ intrapreneurship during their studies is considered to be one of the most important indicators of successful development of students’ entrepreneurship competence for their professional life . One of the factors that can enhancing students’ intrapreneurship is educational leadership of faculty members, because human capital is the main students’ resource during their studies at the university
visionary is characterized by the ability of contextualization of the contents and the ability of motivating and giving sense to the study process; strategic style is defined by the ability of creating a learning community, explaining the learning processes to the students, encouraging internal communication processes and foreseeing and formulating problems that can appear in the study process and suggesting solutions; catalyser leader is able to create synergies between students and to foster students’ reflection to overcome problems; the doer style has been characterized by decision-making abilities, evaluation and personal initiative making posts in the learning forums and giving information to others.
The empirical study is based in the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the written participation of 8 university teachers and 36 Master’s students in the compulsory and optional forums of activities of the Master program “Educational Treatment of Diversity”, implemented by the University of Latvia, during four years (2008-2012). A sequential mix-design (initial explorative quantitative study followed by an in-depth qualitative analysis of selected cases) has been chosen to study the relation between faculty members’ educational leadership and students’ intrapreneurship. Written data were collected from the Moodle platform of the Master’s program, using the function “reports”. The software Microsoft Office Excel 2007 has been used for primary data cleaning and preparing the data analysis. The 18 modules of the Interuniversity Masters’ program “Educational Treatment of Diversity” were analysed: 2752 student interventions and 1023 teacher interventions for a period of 4 years (September 2008- July 2012). The level of students’ intrapreneurship has been measured though the analysis of their contribution to the improvement of the quality of the study processes: communication with other students, making positive criticism and suggestions for improvement of the study process, and helping other students (facilitating access to information, sharing experience).
The analysis of the cross tabulations showed that five modules have a high level of students’ participation (numbers 6, 11, 12, 17 and 18), but there was not a direct correlation between students’ intrapreneurship and the number of interventions of teachers. Two teachers (B and F) worked together in three of the five modules with higher students’ intrapreneurship, and each one of them worked together with a 3rd teacher (G) in the two others.
In order to complete the quantitative analysis of teachers’ educational leadership, relevant data has been collected from staff activity: total number of interventions and proactivity in the pedagogical process, initiating discussions in the learning forums (see table 2). The data of the three teachers which use the team work intensively and were involved in the modules with higher student intrapreneurship had been highlighted. The analysis of the results confirms that it is not the number but the quality of the interventions and the team work of teachers that enhance students’ participation and foster students’ intrapreneurship
The selected teachers used mostly strategic (freq=151, 46%) and catalyser (freq=91, 27%) style in their communication with their students.
The doer and visionary style are not so often used by the teachers that foster students intrapreneurship , even if they also are concerned with organizational (doer style: freq=54, 16%) and future (visionary style: freq=35, 11%) questions. Two examples could illustrate this point:
Summarizing the results of the qualitative analysis of the data, it can be said that educational leadership of faculty members, who are involved in the modules where students’ intrapreneurship level is the highest, is based on their ability of team-working, combing different styles of leadership for creating a learning community (strategic leadership style) and fostering students’ reflection (catalyser leadership style).
Some recommendations are put forward to improve university teachers’ educational leadership, so that they can help students more efficiently to develop intrapreneurship attitudes during their studies, as a way of enhancing the development of students’ entrepreneurship competence for the future: A single educational leader cannot respond alone appropriately to the diversity of talents and needs of the students. Creating teams of educational leaders that complement effectively each other in the work with students is the main priority for offering students a qualitative guidance during their studies. As an educational leader provokes the release, from inside, of the energy existing in students, it is most important to foster students’ reflection through self evaluation activities, questioning them about their interventions and building the content and organization of the study process on the students’ proposals. Regular presence, human contact and diversifying the channels of communication are the key issues how to create a learning community on line. Writing contact should be confirmed and supported by other channels, such as Skype video conversations, presence-contact or phone calls at the appropriate time. Non multa sed multum (not too much communication, but with good quality). Teachers are suggested to do a serious work of reflection before sending information to their students, because leadership is not related with the quantity of provided information but with the quality of the communication.