Research Studies Entrepreneurial Education

Sep 28th, 2009 | By Dawn Rivers Baker | Category: Research

Course work in entrepreneurship is becoming more and more commonplace on college campuses but, so far, little attention has been paid to the question of whether entrepreneurship education is effective. So, researchers from the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the Stern School of Business and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, both at New York University, accepted a challenge grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and set about finding out. The resulting research paper, entitled “Toward Effective Education of Innovative Entrepreneurs in Small Business: Initial Results from a Survey of College Students and Graduates,” was released last week by the SBA Office of Advocacy. The paper analyzes data from that first survey.

The team of researchers found that graduates who have taken entrepreneurship courses are more likely to be innovative, to choose careers in entrepreneurship and to self-report stronger skills in areas relating to entrepreneurial activity. There was no discernible relationship between educational achievement and careers in entrepreneurship or between taking entrepreneurship classes and choosing employment in a small business. Unsurprisingly, the researchers also found that men were more likely to launch a career in entrepreneurship than women, and that students with entrepreneurial parents were more likely to be entrepreneurial themselves. Moving forward, further surveys will include more universities (including institutions in Europe, China and the Middle East), with a focus on improving training methods to produce innovative entrepreneurs.

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2 comments
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  1. Jack Speranza September 29th, 2009 8:14 am :

    Hi Dawn — I think I’ve seen snippets of the survey results you mention, but didn’t realize they were part of a larger effort to measure the impact of “entrepreneurship” programs. Do you have a link handy to the complete study? (If not, I have no problem searching it out at the SBA and Kaufmann websites) I’m currently working with a local state college seeking to start it’s first entrepreneurship program and resource center, and this kind of data would be quite helpful to us in creating a framework for our program. Thanks!

  2. Dawn Rivers Baker September 29th, 2009 8:46 am :

    Hi Jack.

    The study should be accessible on the front page of the SBA Office of Advocacy web site, at http://www.sba.gov/advo/.

    This initial data analysis is very bare bones but it should at least give you a place to start.