Extracurricular Enterprise Activities in H.E., Students’ Perceptions of their Entrepreneurial Behaviours, Competencies and Capability

Questions: Which students participate in extra-curricular enterprise activities? Why do these students choose to participate in extra-curricular enterprise activities? What impact do they perceive it to have on their entrepreneurial competencies? Objectives: To evaluate the literature to understand the role extra-curricular enterprise activities have in enhancing entrepreneurial competencies. To collect empirical data on students’ perceptions pre and post extracurricular enterprise activity engagement. Approach: This study used an online survey method to conduct a pre and post evaluation of extra-curricular enterprise activities running at a post 1992 University in the 2015/16 academic year. Each survey contained both open and closed questions to provide quantitative and qualitative data. A control group of students that did not engage in extracurricular enterprise activities was also surveyed at the beginning and end of the academic year (2015/16) using a non-engagement survey providing a comparison. Results: The study found that students participating in extra-curricular enterprise activities were more likely to be female, studying a programme within the Faculty of Business and in the second or final stages of their programme. Students reported participating in extra-curricular enterprise activities for many reasons, the most popular being ‘interest’, followed by ‘enhancement of employability’. A comparison was made to a non-engagement ‘control’ group, and outcomes were comparable to those students engaging in extra-curricular enterprise activities. This raises questions of the importance of addressing these outcomes within enterprise-focussed education. With reference to specific competencies, students improved across all competencies bar ‘creativity’ in the enterprise engagement groups, with significant improvements in ‘resilience’ and ‘perseverance’. Yet in the non-engagement groups, most competencies decreased. This strongly suggests that extracurricular enterprise activities are useful for improving students’ personal competencies. Implications: Enterprise educators must consider how to attract and deliver enterprise education to students from a more diverse range of discipline areas. In relation to competencies, enterprise educators may also benefit from sign posting the competencies that can be developed within extra-curricular enterprise activities so students are aware of what they may be improving through their engagement