The development of entrepreneurship educational programs: Research on student intentions

Abstract

Studies on entrepreneurial education often treat this type of education as a further development of managerial education. However, this demonstrates the need to elaborate a new educational approach based on numerous external sources of ideas - the requests of key stakeholders, state strategy in education, etc. In our research, we consider student intentions and aspirations regarding their future entrepreneurial careers as an external idea that must be considered when developing educational programs. This paper is aimed at clarifying the place of research on student intentions in the methodology of entrepreneurial education development and to conceptualize a methodological approach for future research on the topic. Our primary goal is to identify the methodology of entrepreneurial intentions research so that it can play a proper role of in the development of educational programs. We analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of university involvement in entrepreneurial systems. Two methods were employed during the research: 1) analysis of existing educational programs on entrepreneurship at Russian universities and identification of their strengths and weaknesses in relation to the goal of developing entrepreneurial competencies among students; 2) a survey among students to identify their intentions with regard to entrepreneurship. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) was used as the theoretical framework of the study, which allowed us to identify and improve student perceptions of entrepreneurial educational programs. The study showed that existing entrepreneurial education programs at Russian universities do not fully meet the requirements of potential students. Our proposed methodology for determining the ways in which to reorganize educational programs allows us to consider the intentions and preferences of students to a greater extent and increase the effectiveness of these programs. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice, charting several promising areas for future research on the methodology of entrepreneurial education.