2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Entrepreneurship among STEM students is an important phenomenon: Companies formed by students in STEM programs include large U.S. employers such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Google. Unfortunately, women are less likely than men to participate in potential upward mobility driven by entrepreneurship. Despite the potential importance of entrepreneurship as a path for individuals trained in STEM fields to enter the technology workforce, surprisingly, little research has focused on understanding and encouraging entrepreneurship among STEM students generally and women in particular. In this study, our goal is to develop a field experiment to increase entrepreneurial proclivity in undergraduate women studying STEM fields. Entrepreneurial proclivity is defined as the extent of an individual’s (1) intentions to engage in entrepreneurship, (2) efforts to acquire knowledge about entrepreneurship, and (3) entrepreneurial actions. We focus on entrepreneurial self-concept as an umbrella term that encompasses three closely related, malleable psychological states that can increase entrepreneurial proclivity: (a) Entrepreneurial identity aspiration, (b) Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and (c) Intrinsic entrepreneurial motivation.

We propose female STEM students demonstrate higher entrepreneurial proclivity when they are exposed to relatable role models in entrepreneurship than when they are exposed to unrelatable ones, and these effects are due to increases in entrepreneurial self-concept. Most students likely have had limited direct experience with entrepreneurship and, hence, might not understand what entrepreneurship entails or view it as an exciting career option. In such circumstances, to fuel their interest in entrepreneurship, it is likely important to allow students to vicariously experience what it means to be an entrepreneur. Such vicarious experiences can be provided to female students by introducing them to role models who describe what STEM entrepreneurship is, as well as why they enjoy it. This exposure may make female students feel that they, too, can engage in entrepreneurship, especially when the role models seem relevant and relatable to them.

The field experiment involved over 2,500 incoming freshman students at a large Carnegie R1 university from June to July 2022 who participated in freshman orientation. We have developed and preregistered our research plan and analysis. Male and female students were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions, either the relatable role model condition, the unrelatable role model condition, or the control condition. Role models were young, recent alumnae or upper-level students currently enrolled at the same university and talked about their journey to entrepreneurship. In the unrelatable role model condition, students watched a video similar to the one described above, but the individuals who appeared in the video were older and dressed in formal or somewhat outdated clothing. The video in the control condition was a generic movie about campus life. After watching the assigned video, participants completed a survey.

Preliminary analysis indicates that exposure to the relatable role model video increased entrepreneurial intention, and the entrepreneurial identity aspiration was the underlying process driving the condition effect. The interventions developed in this study have practical implications, as they appear to provide a cost-efficient means to diversify STEM entrepreneurship within undergraduate populations in at least one major University in the United States.