Using experimental designs to study entrepreneurship education:A historical overview, critical evaluation of current practices in the field, and directions for future research

Over the last 20 years, there has been growing interest among scholars in conducting experiments in entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we first discuss how experiments as a research method have moved from the natural sciences into the social sciences and how the social sciences, including the educational sciences, have helped to address the challenges of using experiments in studying human behavior. Through the lens of the methodological advances made by the social sciences regarding conducting experiments, we systematically review the literature on entrepreneurship education research that has used experimental designs. By reviewing this literature, we provide an overview of what has and has not yet been studied using experimental designs and which type of experimental designs have been commonly used. Next, we critically evaluate current practices – both good and bad. Based on our critical assessment of the use of experimental designs in the field of entrepreneurship education research, we not only provide a future research agenda and call for experiments that (1) are more theory-driven; (2) answer more ambitious research questions, and (3) use more robust designs, but we also provide several paths forward for experimentalists with an interest in entrepreneurship education to do so

Entrepreneurial cognition and the quality of new venture ideas:An experimental approach to comparing future-oriented cognitive processes

In the research reported here, we compared how future-oriented cognitive processes underpin differences in the quality of new venture ideas (NVIs) generated by respondents. We primed the use of future-oriented cognitive processes in two experiments. The first experiment shows that prospective thinking leads to NVIs of higher quality in comparison to counterfactual thinking, perspective taking and a control group. The second experiment shows that prospective thinking and perspective taking result in NVIs of higher quality compared to counterfactual thinking and the control group. We also find that prior knowledge of technology strengthens these effects. Post-hoc analyses show that these effects are present when respondents are prompted to generate NVIs, but not when they spontaneously generate NVIs, and that respondents with more prior business experience are more likely to spontaneously generate NVIs. Finally, we discuss contributions our research makes to the literature on entrepreneurial cognition and opportunity recognition, and to practice

Experience, knowledge, and performance in entrepreneurship education:Proposing a dynamic learning model

This study integrates the theory of entrepreneurship education with learning. We analyze the literature of entrepreneurship education to understand how different educational configurations (theoretical versus experiential) result into different learning dimensions along the ideation, creativity, innovation, start-up process. Subsequently, we propose a dynamic research model to explore knowledge acquisition, where the temporal and multilevel aspects of learning are considered. Lastly, we draw propositions to empirically test the proposed model. We contribute to the theory and practice of entrepreneurship education and learning by providing important insights on how to evaluate entrepreneurship knowledge in different educational settings.<br/