Supervisors: Helle Neergaard & Per Blenker
Discussants: Franziska Günzel-Jensen & Nicole Siebold

The presentation will focus on the kappa of the dissertation.

Abstract
The aim of the dissertation is to explore how entrepreneurship education fosters the entrepreneurial mindset (EM) of students in higher education. Practitioners, researchers and policymakers concur that the individuals’ EM should be fostered broadly in the population, as individuals who possess EM drive new venture creation, promote innovation in companies, and experience higher employability (Moberg et al., 2014; Lackéus, 2015; Nabi et al., 2017; QAA, 2018). Scholars in entrepreneurship education largely agree that experiential and transformative learning methods are the most appropriate way to foster the EM of students in higher education institutions (Matlay et al., 2012; Robinson et al., 2016; Daspit et al., 2023). However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of how an educational intervention fosters EM by engaging the students in experiential and transformative learning processes. Furthermore, the fragmented understanding of what the EM is complicates the evaluation of whether a change in EM actually took place. Another challenge is that the research field lacks solid foundation in theoretical contributions from the three intervening fields: entrepreneurship, psychology, and education and learning theories (Krueger, 2009; Nabi et al., 2017; Fox et al., 2018).

This dissertation aims to address these challenges by exploring the mechanisms of how entrepreneurship education fosters the development of the students’ EM. The main purpose is to advance knowledge in the field to assist educators in designing their programs and courses more purposefully. To this aim, this article-based dissertation proposes a conceptualization of EM and evaluates a method for generating insights about the state of students’ EM. A mixed-methods case study is conducted in the context of non-business students to investigate whether and how an entrepreneurship course cultivates the psychological attributes of the students’ EM.

• Daspit JJ, Fox CJ and Findley SK (2023) Entrepreneurial mindset: An integrated definition, a review of current insights, and directions for future research. Journal of Small Business Management 61: 12-44.
• Fox J, Pittaway L and Uzuegbunam I (2018) Simulations in entrepreneurship education: Serious games and learning through play. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy 1: 61-89.
• Krueger NF (2009) The microfoundations of entrepreneurial learning and… education: the experiential essence of entrepreneurial cognition. Handbook of university-wide entrepreneurship education: 35-59.
• Lackéus M (2015) Entrepreneurship in education: What, why, when, how. Background Paper.
• Matlay H, Pittaway L and Edwards C (2012) Assessment: examining practice in entrepreneurship education. Education+ Training.
• Moberg K, Vestergaard L, Fayolle A, et al. (2014) How to assess and evaluate the influence of entrepreneurship education: A report of the ASTEE project with a user guide to the tools.
• Nabi G, Liñán F, Fayolle A, et al. (2017) The impact of entrepreneurship education in higher education: A systematic review and research agenda. Academy of Management Learning & Education 16: 277-299.
• QAA (2018) Enterprise and entrepreneurship education: guidance for UK higher education providers. Gloucester, UK: The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.
• Robinson S, Neergaard H, Tanggaard L, et al. (2016) New horizons in entrepreneurship: from teacher-led to student-centered learning. Education + Training 58.

Everyone is welcome!