In September Patrick Rosenkranz presented a paper as part of a symposium on Psychological literacy at EuroPLAT 2017.

Paper Title:

Enterprise challenges in Psychology: enhancing psychological literacy through entrepreneurial learning.

Authors:
Patrick Rosenkranz, Psychology, Alecia Dunn, formerly Careers Service – Rise Up, Newcastle University, Amy Fielden, Psychology, Trevor James, Psychology, Charlotte Warin, Careers Service – Rise Up

Abstract

Psychology as a discipline and profession is not readily associated with what is commonly known as entrepreneurship, the process of designing, launching and running new business ventures. However, developing aspects of an entrepreneurial mind-set and attitude are pivotal for a fully psychologically literate graduate: this mind set includes the ability to draw upon resources such as psychological knowledge and skills, and then use these to realize psychological ideas in the real world, i.e. benefiting themselves, their community or society as a whole. Entrepreneurial learning processes provide an opportunity for students in psychology to apply their growing knowledge to a real world setting, and for enhancing and advancing their psychological literacy and employability. We created a teaching and learning model called an ‘Enterprise Challenge’ in collaboration with a number of mental health charities and embedded these at various stages of the undergraduate degree programme.  Students are presented with a brief, which constitutes the main task of the challenge and then work in groups to develop their ideas. Tasks and brief are designed to represent real –life problems or issues and the challenge for the students is to develop a product, service or initiative that addresses these issues. In the process of developing the idea, students need to consider practical, financial and ethical constraints. The challenge culminates in a pitch given by the students to a panel of judges who evaluate the feasibility, and creativity of the idea. In this talk we will present the rationale of these challenges and how embedding entrepreneurial processes in the psychology curriculum can aid the development of psychological literacy.

For more information contact patrick.rosenkranz@ncl.ac.uk.