Extracurricular enterprise activities in HE, students’ perceptions of their entrepreneurial behaviors, competencies and capability.
Beaumont, Emily, Preedy, Sarah, Stevenson, Sarah and Morrison, Jane (2016) Extracurricular enterprise activities in HE, students’ perceptions of their entrepreneurial behaviors, competencies and capability. In: 39th Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, 27th-28th October 2016, Novotel Tour Eiffel, France.
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Abstract
Questions: Which students participate in extra-curricular enterprise activities? Why do these students choose to participate in extra-curricular enterprise activities? What impact do they perceive it to have on their entrepreneurial competencies? Objectives: To evaluate the literature to understand the role extra-curricular enterprise activities have in enhancing entrepreneurial competencies. To collect empirical data on students’ perceptions pre and post extra-curricular enterprise activity engagement. Approach: This study used an online survey method to conduct a pre and post evaluation of extra-curricular enterprise activities running at a post 1992 University in the 2015/16 academic year. Each survey contained both open and closed questions to provide quantitative and qualitative data. A control group of students that did not engage in extracurricular enterprise activities was also surveyed at the beginning and end of the academic year (2015/16) using a non-engagement survey providing a comparison. Results: The study found that students participating in extra-curricular enterprise activities were more likely to be female, studying a programme within the Faculty of Business and in the second or final stages of their programme. Students reported participating in extra-curricular enterprise activities for many reasons, the most popular being ‘interest’, followed by ‘enhancement of employability’. A comparison was made to a non-engagement ‘control’ group, and outcomes were comparable to those students engaging in extra-curricular enterprise activities. This raises questions of the importance of addressing these outcomes within enterprise-focussed education. With reference to specific competencies, students improved across all competencies bar ‘creativity’ in the enterprise engagement groups, with significant improvements in ‘resilience’ and ‘perseverance’. Yet in the non-engagement groups, most competencies decreased. This strongly suggests that extracurricular enterprise activities are useful for improving students’ personal competencies. Implications: Enterprise educators must consider how to attract and deliver enterprise education to students from a more diverse range of discipline areas. In relation to competencies, enterprise educators may also benefit from signpostingthe competencies that can be developed within extra-curricular enterprise activities so students are aware of what they may be improving through their engagement.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | Enterprise Education, Extra-curricular, Student, Value, Impact. |
| Depositing User: | Ms Kerry Kellaway |
| Date Deposited: | 30 May 2019 09:56 |
| Last Modified: | 30 May 2019 10:01 |
| URI: | https://marjon.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/17410 |
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