ESSENTIAL FACTORS RELATED TO ENTREPRENEURIAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE ENGINEERING CURRICULUM

摘要

Given changes in the global economy, innovative, entrepreneurial engineers are in high demand. As a result, entrepreneurship has become one of the fastest growing academic areas in engineering. Yet, we know little about what engineering students actually know regarding entrepreneurship in engineering. To address this issue, we devised a multi-institution pilot study using the Entrepreneurship Knowledge Inventory (EKI), a tool that measures students' familiarity with common technology entrepreneurship concepts and terms. The pilot study was conducted across six engineering schools investigating the differences between freshmen and senior engineers in their self-reported knowledge of technology entrepreneurship terms and concepts. The data from the EKI were analyzed to determine if significant differences in entrepreneurial knowledge existed between freshmen and senior engineering students, as well as between senior engineering students with and without past entrepreneurial experience. Results show some differences between freshmen and senior engineering students in certain content areas, as well as between engineering seniors with experience versus those students without any entrepreneurship experience. These findings identify gaps in engineering student knowledge, and suggest areas for improvement in specific areas of entrepreneurship education.