Teaching methods in entrepreneurship education: the case of business students in Iran

Abstract

As stated in numerous studies, entrepreneurship education is becomingmore and more important everywhere in the world and research works inentrepreneurship are growing and getting legitimacy in the scientificcommunities, however a few scholars have focused on the subfield ofentrepreneurship education. Although the key to a successfulentrepreneurship education is to find the most effective way to managethe teachable skills and identify the best match between student needsand teaching techniques, there is no universal pedagogical recipe toteach entrepreneurship and the choice of techniques and modalitiesdepends mainly on the objectives, contents and constraints imposed bythe institutional context. Entrepreneurship education is a newphenomenon in Iran. These programs vary widely in terms of short termobjectives, target audiences, format and pedagogical approach. The firstpost-graduate entrepreneurship management program has been initiated inthe University of Tehran in 2005. Purpose of this paper is toinvestigate on different teaching methods of entrepreneurship educationin this master program. This is a qualitative study and data wasgathered through the semi structured interviews with six experts onteaching methods by taking the experts opinion about teaching methods ofentrepreneurship education for business students. The results point outpassive methods could be used to teach the basic and theoreticalcontents, but active methods like group discussion, role play orsimulation are needed to teach in advanced learning level. They alsoagree to apply for the creative methods include problem solving,training in an enterprise and scientific visits.