Feedback and assessment in higher-education, practice-based entrepreneurship courses: How can we build legitimacy?

Abstract

When educators teach entrepreneurship experientially in higher education, a need arises for different procedures for assessment, evaluation and feedback, and the legitimacy of this type of course is often questioned. In traditional courses, students accumulate knowledge and the educator’s primary concern is what students learn. When learning ‘through’ practising entrepreneurship, students and educators must also care about how students learn. While research brought awareness to this area of concern more than a decade ago, feedback and assessment in entrepreneurship education have received very limited attention. This article addresses these issues both theoretically and empirically. The findings allow the authors to map out the feedback mechanisms needed in experimental entrepreneurship education and to provide an embedded two-by-two model that describes the purpose and outcome of the feedback. The findings also suggest an approach for design and assessment that may help resolve the pedagogical and legitimacy challenges of such courses. These contributions are directly relevant for students, educators and administrators involved with entrepreneurship courses, and they may be applicable to a wider range of process-based courses.