Success Through Failure: Towards a Problem-Based Approach to Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Investments in entrepreneurial education have failed to develop educational programming that increases entrepreneurial activity. We hypothesize that foundational issues reside within the pedagogical approaches used in entrepreneurial education programming specifically as it relates to millennial students. Using the theory of planned behavior as a theoretical framework, we investigated the effectiveness of process-based learning such as courses that focus on developing business plans and models against problem-based learning that uses action-learning methodologies in the development and delivery of an Introduction Entrepreneurship course. We use both within-group and between-group research designs. We collected data at three points: at the start of the course (T1), mid-term (T2), and the end (T3). Results support our hypothesis. First, after exposing students to the challenges of entrepreneurship in the problem-based course that there is a statistically significant decrease in attitudes, subjective norms, perception of behavioral control, and intention to become an entrepreneur at midsemester (T2) and that scores will rebound by T3. Second, the students in the process-based course will have a statistically significant decline in attitudes, subjective norms, and intentions after the course. Implications for the design of entrepreneurship curricula are presented and discussed.