4 Entrepreneurship Education – State of Research
4.1 State of Research on Entrepreneurship Education Programmes in Higher
4.1.2 State of Research on Entrepreneurship Education Programmes at Schools
4.1.2 State of Research on Entrepreneurship Education Programmes at Schools
Studies by Peterman and Kennedy (2003) and by Moberg (2014) on entrepreneurial programmes at schools (from primary to secondary and vocational schools) support the proposition that the perceptions of entrepreneurship had been increased by participating in an entrepreneurial programme. However, in contrast to research in higher education, examples for research on the impact of entrepreneurship education and its programmes at schools have been rather patchy (Draycott & Rae, 2011) and demanding if it comes to match the outcomes. This has become all the more pertinent in light of a rising increase of entrepreneurial programmes performed and sometimes even implemented in schools and their curricula. To fill the gap and to improve the theoretical background, scholars have drawn more attention on outcomes and effects of relevant programmes and trainings at schools as is presented in the following overview (in chronological order):
Authors/Year Country Primary
Australia X Effects on perceptions of
desirability and feasibility respecting starting a business Frank, Korunka,
Lueger, & Mugler, 2005
Austria X Factors that increase
entrepreneurial orientation and tendencies for venture building Birdthistle et al.,
2007
Ireland X Perceptions and attitudes towards
entrepreneurial programmes Gibb, 2008 United
Kingdom
X X Issues affecting the embedding of entrepreneurship education schools’ curricula
Draycott & Rae, 2011
England X Purpose and impact of
competence and entrepreneurial
X Impact of enterprise education (especially among students participating in a young enterprise programme) on attitudes towards enterprise
Moberg, 2012 Denmark X Effects on personal development
Rosendahl Huber, Sloof, & van Praag, 2012
The
Netherlands
X Development of cognitive and
non‐cognitive skills Johansen &
Schanke, 2013
Norway X Categorization of various types of
entrepreneurship education and its spread
Sanchéz, 2013 Spain Attitude towards entrepreneurial
behaviour and intention to start a business
Volery et al., 2013 Switzerland X Effects on personality traits, beliefs and competences; impact on entrepreneurial intention
Wai Mui Yu, 2013 Hongkong X Advancing entrepreneurship
education by capacity building Spilling,
Johansen, &
Støren, 2015
Norway X X Scope and current status of
entrepreneurship training programmes and its effects Barba‐Sánchez &
Atienza‐
Sahuquillo, 2016
Spain X Improvement of entrepreneurial
competences and the potential to
X X Impact of primary and secondary school education and family environment on entrepreneurial attitudes
Table 1 Overview on state of research on entrepreneurship education programmes at schools
As shown in the overview above, studies on impacts respecting venture creation, learning outcomes and entrepreneurial intentions and personal development differ significantly in terms of design, methodology or approach what turns out to be challenging when comparing them with one another. To underline this perception, four studies are examined in more detail.
Peterman and Kennedy (2003), for instance, also used the Shapero model (1975, see Section 4.1.1) to examine the effect of entrepreneurship education on perceptions of both desirability and feasibility in respect of starting a business. In contrast to Krueger (1993), however, Peterman and Kennedy conducted their study not with a sample of university students but with about 100 students of schools in Queensland, Australia, aged between 15 and 18 years taking part in a YAA (Young Achievement Australia) programme. The results of the study designed in a pre‐test/post‐test control group research design “clearly show an increase in YAA participants’ perceived desirability and perceived feasibility” and that these perceptions “are strongly influenced by the YAA program” and, moreover, it “provides empirical evidence to support the inclusion of an additional exogenous variable in intentions models, namely exposure to entrepreneurship or enterprise education” (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003, p. 141).
The research findings of a study published by Birdthistle et al. in 2007 examining perceptions and attitudes towards enterprise education programmes in general in secondary schools in Ireland were based on a subject‐specific questionnaire comprising not only students (n=70) but also teachers (n=10) and parents (n=15). Among the students, communication was the skill that was most commonly identified as being the biggest learning outcome of taking part in a school enterprise. A bit lower in the ranking were presentation skills, gaining self‐confidence, teamwork (the latter two were also those identified by the teachers as the most common skills), decision‐making skills and creativity. Conflict management and risk‐taking scored the lowest. The parents, however, considered confidence as the most important skill to be obtained, whereas teamwork was ranked the least. Out of the results of this multi‐stakeholder perspective on enterprise education programmes, the authors conclude that – despite of the findings’ differences of the various groups – “one common and consistent finding emerges, which is the continued need and benefits of enterprise education programmes
at secondary level” and that “[t]he education system can also influence students’
attitudes and play a role in actively promoting entrepreneurship” (Birdthistle et al., 2007, p. 274).
Addressing the effects which entrepreneurship education and project‐based education may have on entrepreneurial intentions and personal development in terms of self‐conception and future orientation was the scope of a survey by Moberg (2012), a random sample of 2000 Danish lower secondary level students (with a total response of 724 respondents). Entrepreneurship education here is identified by the strong linking between the student’s own idea and the more emotional than cognitive experience.
Different stages of action and thinking characterize the project‐based approach, and experience is seen as a final stage of reflection on the actions performed. Both approaches are practice‐based, but the findings of the study are rather puzzling. When combining both approaches, effects on self‐conceptions were diminished. Then again, there is a positive effect on personal development and on entrepreneurial intentions if only entrepreneurship education as an approach is examined, whereas there is no effect on entrepreneurial intentions but on future orientation when project‐based education is in the focus. In the light of these findings, the author recommends not to run the two approaches in parallel but to focus on one of the methods in order to complement learning objectives and methods instead of letting them clash.
Sánchez (2013) took a different approach towards entrepreneurial education in the sense of finding out if entrepreneurial education will increase the intention to found or to start a business. By using a pre‐test/post‐test quasi‐experimental design including an experimental group (n=347) and a control group (n=363), the research findings were based on an entrepreneurship programme offered over eight months in different schools in Spain. Questionnaires focussing on analysing the impact of an entrepreneurial programme on entrepreneurial competences and intentions were handed out both to the experimental and to the control group at two different times (before the programme started and after the programme had been completed). Results of the study “show that the mean values of the program sample in the post‐test for self‐efficacy, proactiveness, risk taking, and intention of self‐employment are significantly higher in relation to the pre‐test” (Sánchez, 2013, p. 456) and that the programme offered “clearly shows a
major improvement in entrepreneurial competencies and intentions and thus a positive attitude toward entrepreneurial behaviour” (Sánchez, 2013, p. 458).
However, longitudinal studies are missing which explore the developmental process in entrepreneurship as stated by Geldhof, Porter et al. (2014, p. 442): “There have been no longitudinal studies explicitly designed to understand the development of (i.e. intraindividual change in) entrepreneurship among late adolescents or young adults.” Consequently, Geldhof et al. designed the YES6 project, a mixed‐methods
“longitudinal study of the development of entrepreneurship during late adolescence and young adulthood” (Geldhof, Weiner et al., 2014, p. 86) aiming to explore how adolescents develop entrepreneurial intent and capacity. Preliminary findings of this study suggest that there are a number of aspects predicting entrepreneurial intent (“self‐regulation, innovation orientation, and having entrepreneurial role models (i.e., parents)”; see Geldhof, Weiner et al., 2014, p. 81) and that intentional self‐regulation, in particular, should be focused on in future research on entrepreneurial development.
Unfortunately, there are no more recent results of this study available.
In sum, in a number of countries research on entrepreneurship education programmes at schools is on the rise, nonetheless, there is a paucity of relevant and current empirical studies encompassing this topic in Germany. This is all the more startling as the number of entrepreneurial interventions and trainings also increase in German schools (mostly performed in secondary education) and even find their way into schools’ curricula (depending on the individual German federal states). As the few studies available (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie, 2010; De Haan, Grundmann, & Plesse, 2009; Knab, 2007) all address student companies as entrepreneurial programmes, details will be given Section 5.5.
As discussed above, studies on the impact and effects of entrepreneurial programmes at schools revealed that a number of these programmes are based on an action‐oriented or experiential learning approach. This is underlined as well in a publication by the OECD (2014) inter alia on the latest research on entrepreneurship education: “In secondary school, entrepreneurship education often places more focus on the delivery specific technical skills using mini‐companies and activities entailing
6 YES: Young Entrepreneur Study
active learning and real‐life situations” (OECD, 2014, p. 111). This perspective will be examined in Section 5 by delineating experiential learning in entrepreneurial programmes and especially the experiential learning approach as a theoretical foundation for mini‐companies.