Assessment: examining practice in entrepreneurship education

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop knowledge about the nature of student assessment practice in entrepreneurship education.Design/methodology/approachThis paper introduces general assessment practice issues and highlights key considerations. It explains prior research on assessment practice in entrepreneurship education and argues that there is too little empirical research on the subject. Finally, it outlines a typology of entrepreneurship education that highlights variation between different: forms; learning outcomes; subjects; and, possible methods of assessment practice. The methodology for the study gathers data from course outlines (syllabi) and explains how these were collected and analysed.FindingsThe results show that educational practice in entrepreneurship education continues to be dominated by the “About” form and highlight that there are different cultures of assessment practice in the UK and the USA. The paper finds compelling evidence that different forms are using assessment in different ways.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper identifies that there have been few studies exploring assessment practice in entrepreneurship education and argues that further research is required in this area. It also highlights a need for a focus on assessment practice in disciplines beyond the business school. The work demonstrates that further research could explore other stakeholders in the assessment process and seek to understand how these external assessors affect student learning.Practical implicationsIn conclusion, the paper highlights that assessment generally needs to become more innovative, more reflective in nature and include more stakeholders in the process.Originality/valueUnderstanding is enhanced because the paper explores what entrepreneurship educators actually “do” when they assess entrepreneurship education and, therefore, the research moves beyond prescriptive accounts and provides a detailed understanding of actual practice.

When Did You Last Predict a Good Idea?

“…Those that focused on developing skills 'for entrepreneurship' predominantly used 'business planning' formats and assumed innovative capacity, whilst those categorized as learning 'through' the practice of entrepreneurship were less frequently encountered in the data. In other words, most of the assessment collated in the study by Pittaway and Edwards (2012) was based on knowledge retention, as opposed to the ability to act creatively through 'knowledge harvesting' in response to shifting demands and ambiguous situations, as is the case we shall describe in design-based studies.…”

“…Moreover, Pittaway and Edwards (2012), in their international review of entrepreneurship education, focused on collated evidence of current assessment practice. Their findings revealed that -despite the desire to develop innovative approaches for entrepreneurship education -most educational practice was still fairly traditional and reliant on the notion of being consistently correct.…”

“…These high levels of employer satisfaction with educational provision suggest that the teaching, learning and especially assessment strategies used in design education merit further investigation and may align well with the aforementioned demands of enterprise education (Pittaway and Edwards, 2012). The emergent term 'Design thinking' (Brown, 2009;Martin, 2009) encompasses this pedagogical stance and can be aligned with the requirements of the UK's Quality Assurance Agency's Benchmark Statement for Art and Design Programmes (QAA, 2008) with which all new degree level programmes of study must comply.…”

How do Italian vocational teachers educate for a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship? Development and initial application of the SIE questionnaire

“…Although there is very little research dealing with assessment in entrepreneurial education (Pittaway and Edwards, 2012), it is increasingly clear that learner-led approaches are required. For Sagar (2015), students should co-design, co-teach and co-assess entrepreneurial education activities through formative and peer assessment.…”

Untitled

“…Since a university's mission is somehow linked to entrepreneurship, the academic programs have three different ways of approaching the issue, namely: "about", "for" and "through" entrepreneurship Pittaway & Edwards, 2012). The first ones are more traditional and adopt a theoretical perspective; they focus on delivering knowledge about what entrepreneurship is and how an entrepreneur should behave (Pittaway & Edwards, 2012).…”