Faculty Beliefs of Entrepreneurship and Design Education: An Exploratory Study Comparing Entrepreneurship and Design Faculty

Abstract

Engineering capstone design and certain entrepreneurship courses have some similarities in terms of student outcomes, course structure, and instructional methods. Both types of courses have the tendency to be less structured than traditional courses and utilize teaching methods such as problem-based or project-based learning. The goals relating to the professional skill set are often similar and can include communication, writing, business, and team skills. Entrepreneurship instructors often focus on the development of the "entrepreneurial mindset" while design instructors focus on the development of "design thinking," characteristics that have some similarities. The role of the teacher in both areas is less likely to be a lecturer, but rather as a coach or a guide that assists students in completing a longer-term project. Many capstone courses have an industry component and can even have an entrepreneurial component. The purpose of this paper is to compare the teaching beliefs and practices of instructors of capstone design courses and entrepreneurship courses. The following research questions will be used to compare the beliefs of capstone versus entrepreneurship instructors:

Work in progress: Entrepreneurship in education: Faculty beliefs, teaching practices, and student learning

“…The survey was constructed based on the results of a qualitative study 26 faculty interviews at three large research universities. The results of the qualitative study are available in Hochstedt, Zappe, and Kisenwether (2010) [3] and Zappe, Hochstedt, and Kisenwether (2012) [4].…”

"The Influence of Culture, Process, Leadership and Workspace on "

“…14,15 Zappe, Hochstedt and Kisenwether conducted a study of faculty beliefs regarding entrepreneurship and design education. 16 One of their questions asked 37 entrepreneurship and capstone design faculty members to choose whether Entrepreneurship programs should "focus on: Intrapreneurship Only versus Entrepreneurship Only," or somewhere along a scale from zero (intrapreneurship only) to 100 (entrepreneurship only). An answer of 50 means "their responses tended to fall between Intrapreneurship Only and Entrepreneurship Only."…”

“…An answer of 50 means "their responses tended to fall between Intrapreneurship Only and Entrepreneurship Only." 16 The median for entrepreneurship instructors was 60 (slightly skewed toward entrepreneurship only), while the capstone design instructors' medium response was 50. The range of responses for both groups was from 18 to 100, seeming to indicate that some faculty members held strong views regarding a clear distinction between what should be taught to educate entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.…”

The DeFINE Program: A Clinical Immersion for Biomedical Needs Identification

“…3 In Atman's research, it was found that identifying the problem and its constraints, communicating, …and seeking information were among the most important design activities. 2 It is these concepts of design and technology commercialization that are often not explored enough in current semester-long design capstone classes and it was these concepts that were further explored by the students involved in the DeFINE Program.…”