Using Experimental Designs to Study Entrepreneurship Education: A Historical Overview, Critical Evaluation of Current Practices in the Field, and Directions for Future Research

Abstract

Over the last 20 years, there has been growing interest among scholars in conducting experiments in entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we first discuss how experiments as a research method have moved from the natural sciences into the social sciences and how the social sciences, including the educational sciences, have helped to address the challenges of using experiments in studying human behavior. Through the lens of the methodological advances made by the social sciences regarding conducting experiments, we systematically review the literature on entrepreneurship education research that has used experimental designs. By reviewing this literature, we provide an overview of what has and has not yet been studied using experimental designs and which type of experimental designs have been commonly used. Next, we critically evaluate current practices – both good and bad. Based on our critical assessment of the use of experimental designs in the field of entrepreneurship education research, we not only provide a future research agenda and call for experiments that (1) are more theory-driven; (2) answer more ambitious research questions, and (3) use more robust designs, but we also provide several paths forward for experimentalists with an interest in entrepreneurship education to do so.

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