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posted by janrinok on Monday December 26 2016, @07:24PM   Printer-friendly

The common thought that learning by experience is most effective when it comes to teaching entrepreneurship at university has been challenged in a new study.

An analysis of more than 500 graduates found no significant difference between business schools that offered traditional courses and those that emphasise a 'learning-by-doing' approach to entrepreneurship education.

The research challenges the ongoing trend across higher education institutes (HEIs) of focussing on experiential learning, and suggests that universities need to reconsider their approach if they are to increase entrepreneurship among their students.

http://phys.org/news/2016-12-entrepreneurial-textbooks.html

[PhD Thesis]: Evaluation of the Outcomes of Entrepreneurship Education Revisited

[Related]: College can cultivate innovative entrepreneurial intentions

[Source]: http://www.aston.ac.uk/news/releases/2016/december/entrepreneurial-experiences-no-better-than-textbooks-says-study/


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  • (Score: 2) by bradley13 on Monday December 26 2016, @09:01PM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Monday December 26 2016, @09:01PM (#446147) Homepage Journal

    As a college instructor, I think it is important that theory is brought into contact with reality. Very few students want to learn theory for theory's sake. That said:

    - There are only so many hours in a curriculum. Every hour spent doing a practical project is an hour not spent in the classroom or on classroom exercises. And vice versa, of course. You must learn skills before you can apply them. What is the appropriate balance?

    - We have a lot of practical projects in our curriculum. Some students profit hugely from these, others not at all. If the average benefit is the same as a similar amount of classroom instruction, I'll bet that the variance is a *lot* higher. Weak or lazy students do very little, counting on partners in group work to pull them through.

    In any case, how do you measure the outcomes? "...evaluating the outcomes of EE that conceptually relies on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives." Great - got the pedagogical buzzword in (Bloom), but how do you measure achievement on the upper two levels? That's where it matters: making independent judgements and evaluations and creatively applying material in new situations. There's basically no way to measure this objectively and consistently.

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  • (Score: 1) by Francis on Monday December 26 2016, @09:42PM

    by Francis (5544) on Monday December 26 2016, @09:42PM (#446163)

    The point of practicum is more in evaluation and motivation than actual learning. It has a tendency to balance out the knowledge and help develop a sense of context.

    A well-designed textbook should be able to do that at least as effectively by simplifying and sequencing information for more effective uptake.

    The relevant question is whether or not the materials being used are specifically better than experience.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 26 2016, @10:41PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday December 26 2016, @10:41PM (#446183)

    There's also a huge difference between "hands on lab course 4 hours a week" and living the job 60 hours a week for a year.

    Real hands-on entrepreneurship, any level position in a small startup company, is BETTER than any MBA. Not surprising that the for-profit education system is trying to run them down.

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    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:55PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 27 2016, @04:55PM (#446378)

      Real hands-on entrepreneurship, any level position in a small startup company, is BETTER than any MBA. Not surprising that the for-profit education system is trying to run them down.

      No. Hands-on experience is *different* than an academic one. It is by necessity more practical, but may not be as good in the end-case.

      To put it in a programming perspective, in my mind, there are three people.

      1) Has hand-on experience but little academic. This person is good at delivering code. If I say "I want a electronic records sorting system" they'll probably deliver something which works.
      2) Academic experience but little academic. This person understands why certain things work and can make small projects. They would fail as making an electronic records sorting system, but they would understand the concepts of why a working one works.
      3) Academic experience and hands on experience. This person would make an EFFICIENT and MAINTAINABLE electronic records sorting system.

      I've had experience with all three of them, and pure hands-on experience is overrated. I know somebody who was good at making a first cut, but literally had never learned what a floating point operation was and why it can't be relied upon to sum large numbers of financial transactions. You just don't learn that stuff in hands-on.

      I'm sure somebody with hands-on experience running a business would be better at the practical aspects of business ("you need to give a bribe of about $5000 to the mob to get the permit to build there"), but I expect they'd not get all of it as good as they could ("I've used a paper filing cabinet for the past 20 years and it hasn't failed me yet").