Entrepreneurship Education, a Challenging Learning Process towards Entrepreneurial Competence in Education

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is a recent field in education. From a field mainly related to small business, it is extended towards enhancement of students’ entrepreneurial attitudes and skills. It can support students in developing an independent and versatile way by growing the spirit of entrepreneurship. Developing entrepreneurship competence among students requires the mastery of concepts by teachers. Training teachers in entrepreneurship education helps them apply specific competences, methods, and tools to encourage confidence in learners’ own capabilities and to stimulate flexibility, leadership, and initiative. To understand the teachers’ entrepreneurial competence, an online survey was developed to assess the level of mastery of such competence in Albanian teachers. The survey was designed to analyze the development of entrepreneurial competence of teachers, and their entrepreneurship education and training. The research goal of the survey is to evaluate the influence mechanisms of gaining entrepreneurship education competence and the way of implementing this competence in pre-university education schools. Results from the questionnaire highlighted the teachers’ need for the acquisition of entrepreneurial competence at every professional level, starting from initial teacher education. The findings from the survey are analyzed by taking into consideration the European policies regarding entrepreneurship education, such as the European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp), and their implementation in the Albanian educational sector.

Analysis of pre-service teachers’ knowledge about the entrepreneurial competence: a case study of a Spanish university

“…However, only 13% of the teachers participating in a study by Arruti and Paños-Castro (2023) claimed to support their students in the management of internal and external actors with whom they share achievements and progress. This contrasts with Miço and Cungu (2023 , p. 9), who corroborated that 45.5% of the participants in their study ‘try to create connections and cooperation structures with businesses and community organizations to support the entrepreneurship curriculum in their schools’. It could be why, Sanz Ponce and Núñez Canal (2022 , p. 143) proposed ‘designing achievement tests that actively include the recipients or customers of the products or services made by the students in the entrepreneurial projects, specifically devised for each level of education and educational practice.’…”

“…As Deveci and Seikkula-Leino (2018) stated, there are many studies that advocate including EE in the teacher training curriculum ( Chikodi Ebo et al, 2023 ), and therefore, starting the training in the degree program will enable them to become teachers. In fact, different studies have shown that teachers do not feel sufficiently supported and prepared to implement EE ( Mattila et al, 2009 ; Seikkula-Leino et al, 2010 ; Ruskovaara and Pihkala, 2013 ; Deveci and Seikkula-Leino, 2018 ; Miço and Cungu, 2023 ). In fact.…”

“…In fact. Grigg (2020) found that 27% of participants in the EntreCompEdu project claimed to have no prior experience of EE; Ruskovaara and Pihkala (2013) found that 196 teachers out of the 521 who took part in the project had not received any training in EE; and Miço and Cungu (2023) highlighted that only 44.6% reported having received training in the EC that enabled them to include it in the subject they teach, and 71% stated that they had not received any training in EE during their studies at university. In addition, only 29.6% of the participants considered themselves sufficiently competent in the EC.…”

“…What seems to be clear is that university lecturers should provide students with the EC ( Miço and Cungu, 2023 ) and allow them ‘to search ( sic ) the ideal content of entrepreneurship education as well as the manner in which it should be handled’ ( Deveci and Seikkula-Leino, 2018 , p. 132). According to Wach (2014) , education can ultimately have a positive impact on entrepreneurship.…”

Using the Case Study Method in Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Education

“…Similarly, Chen et al (2023) revealed that methods such as business simulations, which are practice-based, are effective in entrepreneurship education. Miço and Cungu (2023) expressed the need to embrace non-traditional teaching and learning methods to develop entrepreneurial competences among students. Similar sentiments are echoed in other similar studies such as Neck et al (2014), Mann et al (2021, Koropogui et al (2024), Motta and Galina (2023), among others.…”