This workshop is designed to provide attendees with an overview of tools to assess student learning outcomes related to entrepreneurship education. By the end of the workshop, attendees should have a set of assessment resources that they can adopt in their engineering-based and campus-wide entrepreneurship programs. The presenters will introduce a new assessment tool that was developed for an in-depth, multi-institution study (Entrepreneurship Education and its Impact on Engineering Student Outcomes: The Role of Program Characteristics and Faculty Beliefs) funded by NSF. The new tool draws on items currently or previously used at the institutions involved in the study (Purdue, Penn State University, North Carolina State University, and NCIIA), as well as others identified in the literature. Purdue University is examining the effect of entrepreneurship education on engineering student learning outcomes. To measure the outcomes, the presenters developed a new assessment instrument targeted at senior-level engineering students enrolled in capstone design courses. Items fall into the following categories: 1) demographic data (sex, ethnicity, engineering discipline, majors/minors); 2) entrepreneurial background/experience (parents/family careers, work experience, entrepreneurial education and experiences); 3) career goals; 4) knowledge/familiarity with entrepreneurial terms and concepts; and 5) entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The workshop will provide an overview of the assessment instruments that were considered by the research team and the methodology used to create the final instrument. It will also address several challenges encountered during development and administration including choices of response scales, length, and student and faculty participation.
