What is it about?
This paper presents research into the entrepreneurs’ perspective of concepts critical to thinking as an entrepreneur, in order to inform enterprise and entrepreneurship course design in higher education. Using a Delphi-style method, semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs were conducted, transcribed, thematically coded and analysed, and a list of candidate threshold concepts drawn up. Two rounds of Delphi were conducted with the entrepreneur panel and consensus was reached on a final collection of threshold concepts in entrepreneurship.
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Why is it important?
Entrepreneurship is generally regarded as an important factor in economic growth, and higher education an appropriate place for the development of entrepreneurship. However, there is a lack of consensus regarding how best to educate students for entrepreneurship in higher education or indeed what educating students for entrepreneurship really means. Identifying threshold concepts in entrepreneurship using the lived experience of entrepreneurs is likely to open up new and more effective approaches to teaching this multidisciplinary subject area.
Perspectives
This study contributes to the call for more research-grounded discussion on the quality of entrepreneurship education initiatives, particularly in relation to what makes pedagogical innovations effective by suggesting 5 entrepreneurship threshold concepts. These entrepreneurship threshold concepts can be used to set out a structure for the design and (re)development of enterprise and entrepreneurship curricula, as well as enabling more constructively aligned assessments.
Lucy Hatt
Northumbria University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Threshold concepts in entrepreneurship – the entrepreneurs’ perspective, Education + Training, February 2018, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/et-08-2017-0119.
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