Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Education Program in a Large Class

Abstract

This study investigates the effectiveness of an entrepreneurship education program in a large classroom setting at a research university. Entrepreneurship education is typically delivered through experiential, action-based approaches in small class formats that are not easily scalable. A unique aspect of this study is that the credit-bearing course examined was conducted in a large lecture hall setting with several hundred students from diverse academic disciplines. Our quasi-experiment using difference-in-differences (DID) analysis evaluated the program’s effectiveness. Outcomes of enrolled students were compared to those of a control group of students who had not taken the course. Results show that the program significantly deepened students’ understanding of causation and effectuation logic, which are important elements of entrepreneurship. These results not only generally validate results of earlier studies showing the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programs. They also demonstrate that, combining various types of content, students’ entrepreneurship mindsets can indeed be fostered, even in a traditional large classroom setting. Consensus is building towards a view that entrepreneurship is important not only for entrepreneurs starting new businesses, but for everyone who might create new opportunities and value in uncertain environments. Research universities are called to provide entrepreneurship education comprehensively to students with various motivations and prior knowledge. Nevertheless, many institutions are constrained by the existing curriculum, physical infrastructure, and a lack of qualified instructors. This paper’s salient contribution is its demonstration that properly designed entrepreneurship education can be provided efficiently to large classes with minimum resources.