Educational Innovation Boosting Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions

Abstract

The interest in entrepreneurship is growing, due to its relationship with competitiveness, growth, employment, and innovation. In fact, there are numerous studies trying to identify factors influencing entrepreneurial intentions among university students, especially among young people, and in those countries with declining growth rates. Using the Entrepreneurial Event Model, we try to understand the role played by the perceived opportunity in explanatory models of EI development. To this end, we analyze the moderating effect of educational active learning methods on the link between perceived opportunity and entrepreneurial intentions. Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling was used, with a sample of 333 first-year Spanish higher education students. Findings suggest that visual thinking, flipped classroom, visitor’s and teacher’s role model, brainstorming, cooperative case studies, learning by problems, debate, and improving communication skills moderate the relationship between the perceived opportunity, and thus on the entrepreneurial intentions. The results contribute to universities and practitioners as well as to the growth of entrepreneurship.