scholarly journals Stimulating Entrepreneurial Interest in Engineers Through an Experiential and Multidisciplinary Course Collaboration

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nira Roy ◽  
Francine Schlosser ◽  
Zbigniew Pasek

Entrepreneurship education is gaining momentum in today’s world. This article focuses on a teaching intervention introducing engineering students to multidisciplinary innovation and entrepreneurship, using experiential learning and the lean start-up method. We compare the experience and attitude change of engineers enrolled in a mixed cohort of undergraduate business and engineering students to those enrolled in an engineering-only cohort. To evaluate the effectiveness and outcome of the program, data were collected at the very beginning of each course and at their completion. Results indicated interest in entrepreneurship significantly increased at the end of the course and supported the concept that interest in entrepreneurship can be positively motivated through experiential learning. The engineering-only cohort experienced a greater change in entrepreneurial interest and were challenged more over the course of the term than the multidisciplinary cohort. Nonetheless, the multidisciplinary cohort benefited by interacting with business students and leveraging the shared disciplinary experience.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Crestofel Lantu ◽  
Yulianto Suharto ◽  
Ira Fachira ◽  
Anggraeni Permatasari ◽  
Grisna Anggadwita

PurposeThe development of teaching methods in the field of entrepreneurship education is a challenge for academics to achieve “real active learning.” This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of learning experience through internship program at start-ups. This paper examines the benefits and challenges from stakeholders' experiences and perspectives (business students, start-ups and universities). The authors focus on the entrepreneurial values obtained by exploring start-up processes, culture and work environments.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses qualitative research with a case study approach by applying experiential learning. The objects of this research are students of the School of Business and Management and start-ups in Indonesia. This study divides the pilot program of internship at start-ups into three stages, designing process, execution and evaluation. The analysis technique uses an interpretive approach from interviews and observations of internships based on experiential learning.FindingsThe results showed that the internship program at start-ups in this study has benefits for all major stakeholders, especially students. The results of student learning experiences show that start-ups' characteristics such as a creative work environment, egalitarian work culture and dynamic workflow flexibility can increase their professional and moral values.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has several limitations, including the internship program designed in this study, which is still raw and has several shortcomings. Time series in testing experiential learning is another limitation. For further study, it is necessary to conduct longitudinal research to measure the effectiveness of the start-ups' internship program.Originality/valueThis study provides new insights on experiential learning in developing an internship program at a start-up as an effort to increase entrepreneurial value for business students. This study highlights the possibility that an internship program at a start-up will have an impact on students' entrepreneurial values and competencies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 105256292095197
Author(s):  
Noushan Memar ◽  
Angelina Sundström ◽  
Toon Larsson

Researchers claim that experiential learning approaches (e.g., gamification) are well-suited to management and entrepreneurship education. However, this research has been conducted mostly in small classroom settings. With the increases in the number of university business students, many business courses have also increased in size. The large classroom setting introduces new pedagogic concerns, in particular regarding the complexity of the teaching–learning environment, as a result of students having diverse educational backgrounds, skills, and learning styles. This article explores this concern in its investigation of the ways in which business higher education can prompt various business behaviors among students in large classrooms.By utilizing the gamification of concepts, we created an experiential learning exercise—the Strategic Business Game. Questionnaire surveys conducted with the 126 university students enrolled into two majors during the game reveal that this educational learning experience prompts the students’ causation and effectuation behaviors. In this educational learning experience, the complexity of the large classroom is seen as an advantage and gives the educators an opportunity to increase the quality of the student interaction. Furthermore, this study emphasizes the appropriateness of experiential learning through gamification on individuals’ business behaviors as revealed in large classes in management and entrepreneurship education.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-47
Author(s):  
Kishore S

Entrepreneurship education teaches engineering students in all disciplines the knowledge, tools, and attitudes that are required to identify opportunities and bring them to life. Despite an increased focused on developing and understanding engineering undergraduates’ entrepreneurial mindsets, best practices related to assessing this mindset remain nascent. While some of these existing studies sought to understand perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs, the existing literature is limited in direct attempts to measure students’ entrepreneurial mindsets or beliefs. In this article, we tried to examine the importance of entrepreneurship efforts in engineering education, national support for entrepreneurship, student and faculty attitudes and engagement. We then offer our perspective on the future landscape for innovation and entrepreneurship in engineering education.


Author(s):  
Thomas Fuhrmann ◽  
Michael Niemetz

The OTH Regensburg has a broad variety of study programs in technical, business, social and health sciences. Up to now there is no integral connection in the bachelor curricula between business and technical faculties except for some small subjects. The scope of this project is to develop a new course specialization which connects engineering and business thinking. Electrical engineering students should learn basics of business science and how managers think. Business students should vice versa learn fundamentals of engineering and how engineers solve problems. Students from both faculties work together in projects where they act like start-up companies developing a new product and bringing it into the market. It is seen a transdisciplinary effect: These projects gain innovative results between the disciplines compared to student projects of one isolated discipline. Evaluation results from the first two cohorts indicate high student satisfaction, high learning success as well as directions for further improvement.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Jing Zuo

Due to the difference of engineering and Humanities and social science professional personnel training, engineering students for the status of technology industry to understand deeply, but the lack of training and training in the humanities and business management capabilities, combined with engineering innovation and entrepreneurship education students teaching ability advantages and weak part, suggestions from the revision of personnel training for the cultivation of innovative talents mechanism, build innovation and entrepreneurship education curriculum education system, improve the innovative practice education system to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship training.


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