Assessment tool for sustainable entrepreneurship competencies
In order to facilitate assessment of teaching and learning focused on collaborative students / business partners development of sustainable business, we constructed a manual with the following objectives: (1) to make transparent costs - benefits - outputs - outcomes and impacts of student / business collaboration in sustainable entrepreneurship and green venturing; (2) to support the identification of strengths and weaknesses; (3) to provide insights for improving existing activities; (4) to stimulate innovation on these topics.
Facts & Main Elements
- Student self-assessments (ex-ante and ex-post) to evaluate if Sustainable Entrepreneurship Competencies have developed during the module.
- Online-questionnaire
- Theoretical foundation: Ploum et al. 2018. Towards a Validated Competence Framework for Sustainable Entrepreneurship. Organisation & Environment 31 (2), p. 113-132.
- Implemented at UOL and LiU
- Complementary to central module evaluation and formative evaluation/feedback.
- Correlation between competence development and assessment of examination performance was not verified (before-after questionnaires could not be individually assigned).
What‘s new? / Assessment
Focusing on the development of competencies complements the focus on business model development within the modules. It can provide good guidance for the development of teaching content and support within the respective modules.
To consider:
- significance of self-assessment;
- influences of other parallel modules on the competence development cannot be isolated.
Main outcomes
- the development differs between the modules/universities.
- Competence development differs between fields: the area with the lowest rating at the beginning and then the greatest development in the area of Strategic Action Competence and System Thinking Competence (UOL)
- Example: Strategic action competence development in Environmentally Driven Business Development (LiU, 2020)
- Some parameters of importance (prel.):
- Study program
- Study course/module
Lessons learned & Plans for the Future
- To ensure high response rate, integrate the survey into the module.
- Students have not been interested in learning about their own development (so far). Increased interest could lead to a higher motivation to respond.
- To fully evaluate the development linking of individual questionnaires (before-after) is crucial.
- A tool that can be used to also indicate previous knowledge – of value both for teachers and students.
- Not suitable for evaluation of short-term activities.
- Plans and ideas for the future
- Identify the key questions and simplify
- Personal tokens to link the individual questionnaires
- Integrate the assessment as part of the feedback system in the modules
Links to additional resources:
Questionnaire Sustainable Entrepreneurial competencies
Framework for evaluation of educational modules
Factsheet student/business projects
Evaluation guidelines of collaborative student-business venturing activities (full report)
Interview guidelines
Coding schemes
... of business partner interviews
You can download the manual here.
More information: Madeleine Larsson, Linköping University (SE) mail: madeleine.larsson@liu.se & Anne Seela, University of Oldenburg (GER), mail: anne.seela@uol.de
