This week has been exciting for our research group, as Karen Williams-Middleton has passed her thesis defence and is now PhD in Entrepreneurial behaviour. Opponent was Professor Alain Fayolle, who is a world leader in our field. We had the pleasure of attending a seminar where Fayolle gave his view on international aspects of entrepreneurship education. He told us about an interesting report by a European expert group in the field, where they conclude, among many things, that “there seems to be a gap between the methods actually used and those that are viewed as the most effective and appropriate. Using experience-based teaching methods is crucial to developing entrepreneurial skills and abilities. Traditional educational methods (like lectures) do not correlate well with the development of entrepreneurial thinking.” Our premature feeling in the research project is that VCPs are quite scarce, despite their extensive use of action-based pedagogy that many scholars view as crucial, and this seems to be in line with the above quote. The report can be downloaded here.
