PurposeFacing the multiplication of entrepreneurship education programmes (EEP) and the increasing resources allocated, there is a need to develop a common framework to evaluate the design of those programmes. The purpose of this article is to propose such a framework, based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB).Design/methodology/approachTPB is a relevant tool to model the development of entrepreneurial intention through pedagogical processes. The independent variables are the characteristics of the EEP and the dependent variables are the antecedents of entrepreneurial behaviour. To illustrate and test the relevance of the evaluation methodology, a pilot study is conducted.FindingsData are consistent and reliable, considering the small scale of this experiment. The EEP assessed had a strong measurable impact on the entrepreneurial intention of the students, while it had a positive, but not very significant, impact on their perceived behavioural control.Research implications/limitationsThis is a first step of an ambitious research programme aiming at producing theory‐grounded knowledge. Reproduction of the experiment will allow researchers to test how specific characteristics of an EEP influence its impact and how the impact differs across several cohorts of students. Those comparisons will serve to improve a priori the design of EEP.Originality/valueThe new methodology is built on a robust theoretical framework and based on validated measurement tools. Its originality is about a relative – longitudinal – measure of impact over time and a particular use of the theory of planned behaviour which is seen as an assessment framework.

Do entrepreneurship education programs (EEPs) really influence participants’ attitudes and intention toward entrepreneurship? How is this influence related to past experience and how does it persist? Researchers and entrepreneurship education stakeholders alike have been looking into this question for quite a while, with a view to validating the efficacy of such programs. The authors of this paper propose to operationalize the concept of entrepreneurial intention and its antecedents in an attempt to address those issues. In particular, we propose an original research design where (1) we measure the initial state and persistence of the impact and not only short‐term effects; (2) we deal with a compulsory program, allowing to avoid self‐selection biases; and (3) we deal with an homogeneous “compact” program rather than programs combining multiple teaching components whose effects cannot be disentangled. Our main research results show that the positive effects of an EEP are all the more marked when previous entrepreneurial exposure has been weak or inexistent. Conversely, for those students who had previously significantly been exposed to entrepreneurship, the results highlight significant countereffects of the EEP on those participants.

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Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by MONASH UNIVERSITY For Authors:If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comWith over forty years' experience, Emerald Group Publishing is a leading independent publisher of global research with impact in business, society, public policy and education. In total, Emerald publishes over 275 journals and more than 130 book series, as well as an extensive range of online products and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 3 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The aim of this article is to offer a conceptual framework in entrepreneurship education largely inspired by education sciences and discuss its two main levels, the ontological and educational levels. This framework is then used to discuss various types of entrepreneurship teaching programs, focusing on three broad categories of learning processes. Design/methodology/appraoch -This article uses intensive reviews of literature in the fields of education and entrepreneurship. The teaching framework and the derived propositions are intended to provide a bridge between education sciences and the field of entrepreneurship and seeks to stress the scientific legitimacy of entrepreneurship education. Findings -Finds that there is a need to reconsider entrepreneurship education in its wide diversity, both from an ontological and pedagogical point-of-view. The range of theoretical choices, objectives, publics, pedagogical methods and institutional context should be approached through the lenses of multiple teaching models and learning processes, which can be structured around a general framework.Research limitations/implications -The framework allows for the combination of both the concept of teaching models and learning process in a general theory-driven framework and their applicability to specific entrepreneurship education situations. Practical implications -The authors' contribution sheds a new light, both on the design and on the implementation of entrepreneurship teaching programs. An explicit conceptual framework should help the effective and systematic design, management and evaluation of new or existing programs, along all the relevant dimensions. Originality/value -The authors propose a conceptual framework, a canonic teaching model, in entrepreneurship education.

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