Entrepreneurship education: a review of its objectives, teaching methods, and impact indicators

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to take stock of existing publications devoted to entrepreneurship education and assess the alignment existing between its generic objectives, target audience, teaching methods and impact indicators.Design/methodology/approachA semi‐systematic literature review is applied; using six thematically separated excel data collection spreadsheets. Datasheets were used in order to reduce the author's bias. A total of 108 articles are reviewed in stages and by categorizing in terms of educational objectives, target audiences, community outreach activities, applied teaching methods and impact indicators.FindingsScholars in this field of study, though differing in a number of definitive issues, are converging towards a single framework of entrepreneurship education. There is a shift from a start‐up view to an attitude‐changing perspective of entrepreneurship education. However, with a diversity of target groups, there is still a non‐alignment between what educators and other stakeholders wish to achieve in educating for entrepreneurship with the applied pedagogical approaches, and success indicators.Research limitations/implicationsThe work has some limitations involved with literature reviews. The main noticeable limitation is the inclusion of both empirical and theoretical literature; it would be more appropriate to use a meta‐analysis approach.Practical implicationsEntrepreneurship education is reviewed in its totality. This is beneficial to educators and policy‐makers that are involved in setting or facilitating entrepreneurship educational programmes. The work will, specifically, help to understand problems related to non‐alignment in setting entrepreneurship educational programmes; a common pitfall for most of education designers.Originality/valueThe novelty of the work is in the use of data collection sheets. This has minimized the author's own bias, and brought some logical quantification into drawing meanings and conclusions from the existing literature in entrepreneurship education.