2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Measuring Engineering Students’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy in an Entrepreneurship Education Program

Presented at Entrepreneurship and Inventive Thinking & Student Beliefs

In this research paper, we developed and examined an Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy for Engineering Students (ESE-E) instrument. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy refers to individuals’ perceived capabilities to perform entrepreneurial tasks and produce entrepreneurial-related outcomes. It is critical to develop and test the measurement of entrepreneurial self-efficacy with the engineering student population. Further, entrepreneurship education programs are increasing and play a crucial role in engineering education. In the present study, students enrolled in an entrepreneurship education course were from various engineering schools. Overall, the instrument development included four steps. First, our research team conducted an extensive literature review on entrepreneurial self-efficacy in engineering education. Second, we piloted the original entrepreneurial self-efficacy instrument to a small group of students in the entrepreneurship education course. Third, based on the results and feedback we received from the pilot study, we collaborated with the course instructor to modify and add items that aligned with the course content and prior research. Third, we administered the revised instrument to students enrolled in the entrepreneurship education program at the university. Through exploratory factor analysis, the ESE-E demonstrated a 7-factor solution. Factors included product ideation, business planning, customer discovery, team and network formation, idea pitch, people and human resources, and finance. Additionally, correlational analyses demonstrated that these seven factors were related to each other positively. This means that if students are confident about one entrepreneurial-related skill described in this instrument, they are likely to feel confident about other entrepreneurial-related skills described in the instrument. Further and interestingly, students with a growth creative mindset tended to have high self-efficacy for product ideation, team formation, and people and human resources. This means students who believe they can learn to be creative are likely confident about certain entrepreneurial skills. The present study contributed an appropriate instrument for measuring engineering students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy to the literature. Future directions and implications are discussed.

Authors

Dr. Ying Wang Georgia Institute of Technology [biography]

Ying Wang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in CREATE-X and the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology since Fall 2021. She earned her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at The Pennsylvania State University and Master of Education at Temple University. Ying is an educational psychologist who conducts research on examining how students learn and the effective ways to support students’ learning and their academic and professional successes.
Dr. Joy Harris [biography]

Joy Harris, Ph.D., MBA, has led a diverse career as an engineer and an educator. She earned her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University and her MBA from the GA Tech Scheller College of Business. Before joining GA Tech, Dr. Harris was a senior packaging engineer at Intel and a technical consultant at Exponent Engineering and Scientific Consulting.

Currently, she works to make a positive impact within GA Tech in multiple capacities. She is the Director of Undergraduate Transformative Learning Initiatives in the Office of Undergraduate Education. In this role, she focuses on closing equity gaps, lowering barriers, and increasing access to all opportunities within undergraduate education. Dr. Harris also serves as faculty director for the Engineering for Social Innovation Center, where she creates the space for students to use their technical skills to make a social impact. Furthermore, Dr. Harris is also the Director of Women in Engineering for the College of Engineering. Here she helps women-identifying students to be comfortable serving, participating, and leading in a male-dominated field.

Before these roles, Dr. Harris was a faculty member in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. There, she served as a teacher, mentor, and research advisor to undergraduate students. She was the faculty director of the Global Leadership Living and Learning Community, and she was an Associate Director for the CREATE-X entrepreneurship initiative.

Through her different leadership roles on campus, Dr. Harris has learned how to co-create with students, collaborate with faculty, and partner with staff to help enhance the GA Tech community.
Karthik Ramachandran Georgia Institute of Technology

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