Creating Values: the Entrepreneurial-Science Education Nexus

Abstract

Values and how values are created in science education are an under-researched field, which is problematic given the importance of epistemic values to the nature of science. From a sociological perspective, values are experienced as emotionally infused ideas with the power to influence choices and actions in everyday situations such as learning through science inquiry. The present study explores the creation of value and values by building on links with entrepreneurial education that are previously explored, but not fully developed, in science education research. Using an entrepreneurial value creation pedagogy (VCP) model as a conceptual framing, this study is situated in a science inquiry project as part of a preservice teachers’ course. The study focuses on the question: How are values in science education created by learning through doing an entrepreneurially infused inquiry project? The study illustrates how preservice science teachers create values for self to produce a sense of purpose, how they create value for agency to support action taking in a science investigation, and how they create value for others. Findings illustrate a synthesis of entrepreneurial value creation practices with science inquiry and possibilities for improving understandings about how social, cultural, and epistemic values may be created in science education. Future studies should explore the interdependence between social, cultural, and epistemic values experienced by learners in naturalistic science education contexts. This could involve analysis of epistemic emotions as a constituent of epistemic values.