2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Entrepreneurial mindset (EM) development in undergraduate biomedical engineering students ties to development of traits, such as innovation, designing for a customer base, and communication, that are highly valued for the development of new biomedical devices and products. One approach to instilling an EM for biomedical engineering students can be through the inclusion of research experiences, such as the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, where students develop research-based skills and learn to communicate effectively in a research setting. These research experiences have shown prior improvements in general engineering students' EM skill sets such as confidence and critical thinking, and have promoted retention in engineering programs. A recent initiative, supported by the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), created biomedical engineering-focused entrepreneurial experiences called entrepreneurial REUs (eREU) that involve mentorship by start-up company researchers and seamless integration within existing, traditional REU programs at one of three partnering institutions. This initiative aims to foster the development of an EM in undergraduate biomedical engineering students under the well-studied paradigm of REUs.

As part of the program, seventeen students who participated in biomedical engineering REU programs as traditional REU or eREU students at one of the three partnering institutions were asked to engage in an activity where they defined EM through the creation of a concept map. Concept maps were selected as an assessment method due to their ability to directly assess students' perceptions of EM, as compared to indirect assessments such as self-reported surveys. These concept maps were assessed using categorical scoring with six categories: Creating Value, Education, Design Process, Business/Company/Organization, Innovation/Intellectual Property, and KSAs. We found that students most often used KSAs, Business/Company/Organization, and Design Process in their concept maps. When separating the sample between eREU and REU students, we found that there was no statistically significant difference in the categorical scores between the two groups, showing that although eREU students were exposed to an entrepreneurial intervention, it did not necessarily strengthen their perception of EM from a concept mapping standpoint over the short duration of this intervention. eREU students tended to use the KSAs category, aligning more with the perceptions of business students and professionals rather than other engineering students, which may be due to their exposure to working in a business and research setting in tandem. This study identifies the impacts of exposing biomedical engineering students to entrepreneurial research experiences during their undergraduate years to assist in development of the necessary understanding of EM and identify areas of potential further development to assist in better preparing biomedical engineering students for the roles that they will serve in their profession.