Educator challenges in the development and delivery of constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship classrooms in Chinese vocational higher education

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the perceived challenges that Chinese vocational college educators face in developing and delivering constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship education. Design/methodology/approachQualitative data were collected from twenty-four focus groups of educators who had been tasked with embedding constructivist entrepreneurship education into their teaching and curriculum, at four different vocational colleges situated in four different provinces in China.The data was coded and analysed for emerging themes using a process of bottom up thematic analysis. FindingsA range of concerns were identified from the focus groups and these could be divided into five main challenges, which were the role of the educator in the constructivist learning process and their ability to control the process; the educators' perceived student reaction to the process and their engagement with it; the time and technology required to deliver the process; the link between constructivist learning and industry; and the educators' perception of the requirements to meet internal expectations. Educator challenges in the development and delivery of constructivist active and experiential entrepreneurship classrooms in Chinese vocational higher education,

Adapting to constructivist approaches to entrepreneurship education in the Chinese classroom

“…This research meets calls for research into the challenges that students face in Chinese constructivist entrepreneurship education in the Chinese HE Adapting to Constructivist Approaches to Entrepreneurship Education in the Chinese Classroom, Studies in Higher Education. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2019 environment (Bell and Liu 2019). The use of a meaningful constructively aligned valuecreation project that required delivery provided a focus, through which, the challenges and experiences of a cohort of Chinese students could be investigated and considered, leading to recommendations that will facilitate the embedding of such approaches.…”

“…doi: 10.1080/03075079.2019.1655724 (Tan 2017). Research into the challenges that Chinese students face in the Chinese context to such approaches however is lacking (Bell and Liu 2019;Zhao, Zhang, and Du 2017).…”

“…However, research into the challenges that Chinese students face in the Chinese context to such approaches is lacking (Zhao, Zhang, and Du 2017). Bell and Liu (2019) have called for research into the challenges that Chinese students face in constructivist-based entrepreneurship learning.…”

“…This research addresses the paucity of research exploring students' adjustment and reactions to constructivist approaches in the Chinese HE context (Zhao, Zhang, and Du 2017) and meets calls by Bell and Liu (2019) for research into the challenges that students face in Chinese constructivist entrepreneurship education. As Chinese universities are encouraged to recruit guest foreign professors to impart entrepreneurship education upon students, this research examines the challenges that universities in China may encounter with a different learning style and underpins this with existing literature.…”

Underpinning the entrepreneurship educator’s toolkit: conceptualising the influence of educational philosophies and theory

“…Educators can help and support learners to embrace these new approaches until they become comfortable with the process. Similarly, educators may find embracing new approaches difficult and time consuming at first and may prefer to use traditional approaches (Bell and Liu 2019), in which case encouragement and support of the educators may be required. Educators might need to be supported to develop a new mindset when transitioning to different teaching practices (Zhang and Price 2020).…”