A comparison of the effectiveness of entrepreneurial education approaches

Entrepreneurship education is usually taught with the intention of increasing entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial intention is thought to predict entrepreneurial behaviour and is linked to a type of self confidence called 'self-efficacy'. Increases in entrepreneurial 'self-efficacy' are linked with increased entrepreneurial intent and ultimately the desire to start a business. Numerous studies suggest enterprise education increases 'self efficacy' through teaching pedagogies that include opportunities for a combination of four elements: mastery experiences, modeling, social persuasion, and judgments of our own physiological states. Whilst there is research about the combination of these pedagogies little has been done to evaluate the four key methodologies individually to understand the influence of each. The research reported in this paper provides insights into how different pedagogies contribute to the development of self-efficacy. This exploratory study reports on the experiences of three groups of post-graduate students who experienced similar entrepreneurship and innovation management courses with similar content but who were taught using different pedagogies. Given the importance of entrepreneurship and the high levels of investment in entrepreneurship education, these insights on the effectiveness of teaching pedagogies are valuable and fill an important gap in the literature