Abstract

In higher education in the UK, there has been a gradual shift since 1989 in what and how students are being taught in relation to the skills they may acquire and require beyond graduation moving into employment. Part of a national policy, the Enterprise in Higher Education Initiative (EHEI) was implemented to make courses more responsive to the needs of students, employers and the community. A key objective of this national policy was to ensure that during and through their programmes of study all students be given the opportunity to acquire the skills and competencies necessary for personal and social effectiveness in their future lives, learning and employment.

To implement this key objective, schemes of innovative curriculum development were developed to be responsive to both the requirements of an increasingly diverse student population and the needs of employers (Enterprise in Higher Education, 1994). In succession of the EHEI, the developing of enterprise and entrepreneurial behaviour has become more sophisticated and central to higher education institutions alongside Government, with the positive correlation to the economy also being at the forefront of Governmental statements (Elton, 1991). A common response within all subjects but perhaps particularly within business and management has been to develop and provide specialist modules and degree programmes. Another area of much concern to the policy makers and higher education has been the impact of these specialist modules and programmes, which have been subject to some research.

One particular approach to assessing the impact of such modules is the use of Bandura's Self-Efficacy theory and seems to be becoming more popular in attempts to assess and evaluate such impact (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003). The Institute for Enterprise at Leeds Metropolitan University, a HEFCE funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), has initiated a project utilising this approach to assess the value of enterprise focused modules, using an instrument developed and tested by colleagues at Cambridge-MIT.

Methods

This research, which started in October 2007 and is to be conducted over 3 years taking student samples from semester 1 and semester 2 each year, will examine changes in student perceptions in relation to their own skills and abilities and their attitudes to different career options in the future, whilst applying various modules concerned with the subject of enterprise education, learning and practice. The research is exploratory and both quantitative and qualitative methods are being used. Changes in the perceptions of the student samples are analysed using a pre-test post-test survey and smaller purposive student samples are identified to conduct one-to-one interviews to obtain more in-depth data on attitudes, antecedents, expectations of the modules and future career decisions following study on the modules.

Results

Findings reported in the paper will be initial results from the beginning of the study, commenced in October 2007 from semester 1, comprising pre-test and post-test results and interview data and pre-test results only from semester 2 together with interview data. The results will be used to learn how enterprise education experiences influence student career plans. It is intended that this longitudinal study will provide more than a descriptive account of the relationship between enterprise education and its potential influence on entrepreneurial behaviour by providing evidence of the nature of the links between education and subsequent behaviour in relation to our samples.

Although at an early stage, the results of the project will be of interest and value to academics interested in the development of enterprise education. It is also the intention of the researchers to present additional results from the project as they emerge at future ECER conferences.

Bibliography

• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: toward a unifying theory of behavioural change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
• Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
• Elton, L. (1991) Enterprise in Higher Education: Work in Progress Looking Back Over the First Three years. Education + Training, 33 (2).
• Enterprise in Higher Education (1994). Final Report.
• Krueger, N.F. and Brazeal, D.V. (1994) Entrepreneurial potential and potential entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 18 (3), 91-104.
• Peterman, N.E. and Kennedy, J. (2003) Enterprise Education: Influencing students' perceptions of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 27 (4), 129-142.
• Stewart, J. (2007) 'The ethics of HRD', in Rigg, C., Stewart, J. and Trehan, K. (Eds.) Critical Human Resource Development: Beyond Orthodoxy, London: FT Prentice Hall