Assessing the Growth in Entrepreneurial Mind-set Acquired through Curricular and Extra-curricular Components

In an effort to develop an entrepreneurial mindset in our engineering students, the University of New Haven has adopted both curricular and extra-curricular approaches. The curricular components include: 1. Several e-Learning modules covering specific entrepreneurial concepts integrated into the regular engineering and computer science curricula. Available online, each module contains readings, short videos, and self-assessment exercises. Students complete these self-paced modules outside of the classroom over a two-week period. Instructors normally engage students on the content of the module through online or in-class discussions and in-class contextual activities. 2. An elective course on business principles and entrepreneurship that incorporates four e-learning modules. The elective extra-curricular components include: 1. A 24-Hour Imagination Quest event held twice a year. 2. A Startup Weekend event held once a year. 3. A 10-day immersive design experience held once a year. 4. Events at other universities that some students participate in. In order to measure the growth in students’ entrepreneurial mindset as a result of these curricular and extra-curricular components, a measurement instrument containing 37 items was developed. The survey was first administered to first-year students during the new student orientation in August 2014. An exploratory factor analysis was performed based on the data collected and a revised instrument with 50 items was developed subsequently. 25 items from the first version of the instrument were retained in the revised survey. Many of the first-year students who enrolled in fall 2014 graduated in May 2018 and the revised instrument was administered to them just before they left the university. We analyzed the responses of 25 students who took the surveys in 2014 and 2018 to the 25 items that were identical on both surveys. The results of the analysis indicate that the students generally achieved significant growth in their entrepreneurial mindset. The growth is more obvious in the areas addressed by the e-learning modules integrated into the curricula. This result is very encouraging and indicates that the curricular and extra-curricular components are effective in developing an entrepreneurial mindset in engineering and computer science students