Exploring the Impact of Entrepreneurship Education for Service Start-Ups: Perspective from the Experiential Learning Theory ()
1. Introduction
In recent years, with the development of technology and the popularization of the Internet, entrepreneurship is no longer such an unreachable dream compared to the past, and waves of entrepreneurship have emerged around the world, and more and more people yearn for their own business. And then into the upsurge of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship has become a trend in contemporary economic activities. According to the survey of yes123 Job Hunting Website (2021), among the fastest way to raise the salary, 23.6% of the respondents regard self-employment as the fastest way to raise their own salary. It can be seen that entrepreneurship has been regarded as the fastest way to raise their own salary. In recent years, under the circumstances of a poor overall economic environment, high unemployment rate, and low salary, entrepreneurship has also become a way for young students to pursue themselves, get rid of unemployment, increase their own salary, and drive economic growth.
In view of the vigorous development of Taiwan’s cultural and creative industries in recent years, many young entrepreneurs have invested in entrepreneurial activities in the culture-based services, among which the development potential of the service start-ups in the creative living industry has attracted the most attention. The creative living service is an industry that “integrates the core knowledge of the living industry with creativity and provides in-depth experience and high-quality aesthetics” (Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2020). There are two different concepts of “creative + living industry” and “creative living + industry”. The former is to use creativity to activate the operation of living service; the latter is to discover new needs in living and then develop into new service sectors (Zhang, 2010), which originally belonged to catering, leisure and entertainment, tourism and other traditional industries cover the food, clothing, housing, transportation and other related services that ordinary consumers will come into contact with in their daily lives (Ministry of Culture, 2009; Fan, 2015).
However, Taiwan’s culture-related service industries are mostly centered on human capital such as creativity, and the entry threshold for business capital is low, a situation in which businesses are mainly micro-enterprises with a low capital amount has also led to business in the creative living service. While providing diversified services, they also face fierce competition, which makes it difficult for a business to survive. On average, 31.3% of new start-ups do not survive for five years (China Credit Information Service, 2018), and micro-entrepreneurship can only last for 3.9 years on average at the same time (104 Job Bank, 2021). And this will pose a huge challenge to youth entrepreneurship in the creative living start-up development process.
In addition, 73% of people in Taiwan are willing to take the risk of starting a business, 58% agree that starting a business is their ideal career, and only 35% believe that they already have the skills and resources required for starting a business, and agree that Taiwan’s education has taught people about them. Only 34% have the skills needed to start and run a business, which is not only lower than the global average of 40%, but also far lower than the Asian average of 53% (Amway, 2018). It shows that the current entrepreneurship education still has room for improvement in the training of service-related creative living entrepreneurs.
Although entrepreneurship education has been increasingly valued by various countries and regarded as an engine driving national industrial development, young entrepreneurs who invest in entrepreneurial activities in service sectors still face problems such as diversified services, fierce competition, lack of core values, and difficulty in survival. However, the current entrepreneurship education cannot effectively help young entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries to acquire entrepreneurial knowledge, ability and characteristics. The effective development of university entrepreneurship education requires not only a perfect education model and teaching system, but also continuous innovation in the content and methods of entrepreneurship education, in order to further enhance the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education (Wang, 2020).
At the same time, with the continuous development of higher education, the learner-centered experiential learning pedagogy has been paid more and more attention, and has been gradually introduced into the field of entrepreneurship education. For example, Simmons (2021) uses a case study approach to explore the role of experiential learning in entrepreneurship education courses. However, the current research on experiential learning pedagogy in entrepreneurship education still lacks theoretical, systematic and pedagogical analysis, and there is little discussion on “how” to teach. Therefore, this study argues that it is necessary to further explore how entrepreneurship education affects higher education in creative living industries from the perspective of experiential learning.
This study uses a qualitative research approach to explore the impact of experiential learning theory in entrepreneurship education on the development of entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial recognition among higher education students. And through a process perspective, we will further understand the role of experiential learning in the learning process of entrepreneurship education, and then provide new insights for entrepreneurship education researchers, policy makers, and field educators to advance entrepreneurship education in creative living industries.
The structure of this study is as follows: First, the literature on the development, impact, and experiential learning of entrepreneurship education is reviewed and sorted out. Second, the research method used in this paper is described. Third, the findings of the study are presented, followed by a discussion section. Finally, a conclusion is provided, including a discussion of study limitations and future research directions.
2. Evolution of Entrepreneurial Education and Its Impacts
Entrepreneurship education originated from the new business management course offered by Harvard Business School in 1947 (Katz, 2003). Although 80 years have passed since now, entrepreneurship education programs in higher education have grown rapidly and globally with widespread adoption worldwide (Katz, 2003; Kuratko, 2005; Solomon, 2007).
If the definition of entrepreneurship education is divided according to the scope, the broad scope includes the acquisition of personal values, attitudes, behaviors and entrepreneurial skills, and the other is dedicated to practical preparation for launching entrepreneurial adventures (Fayolle & Gailly, 2008; Mwasalwiba, 2010; Alourhzal & Hattabou, 2021). Therefore, entrepreneurship education can also be viewed as a systematic, conscious, goal-oriented process through which non-entrepreneurs with the necessary potential are creatively trained (Esmi et al., 2015). And with the purpose of understanding entrepreneurship, gaining an entrepreneurial mindset, and knowledge about the process of starting a business and running a business effectively (Gibb, 2005). Therefore, entrepreneurship education can also be regarded as a process of cultivating students’ entrepreneurial knowledge, ability and mentality.
With the increasing importance of entrepreneurship activities in various countries, entrepreneurship education has also attracted more and more attention from academia for cultivating future entrepreneurs and preparing them for entrepreneurial activities. Costa et al. (2018) further pointed out that entrepreneurship education itself is a cognitive process, and the learning results will be affected by emotional factors, that is, emotional and cognitive mechanisms can be identified through entrepreneurship education; in addition, entrepreneurship can be learned (Fretschner & Weber, 2013), so it is necessary to incorporate entrepreneurial cognition into the readiness of entrepreneurial readiness, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.
Entrepreneurial readiness is an individual’s ability and inclination to initiate entrepreneurial tasks (Lau et al., 2012), a collection of attitudes and skills required to start a business under any circumstances (Pratomo et al., 2018), and a Perceptions, attitudes and beliefs are also very influential in increasing the number of entrepreneurs in society (Kumar et al., 2021). Therefore, entrepreneurial readiness can be regarded as the psychological state of an individual’s readiness for future entrepreneurship, and this state can be judged through external entrepreneurial ability or whether the individual has the ability to analyze the external environment.
Self-efficacy is an individual’s subjective assessment of one’s ability to achieve expected outcomes (Bandura, 1997). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the field of entrepreneurship refers to the degree of self-confidence shown by individuals in completing entrepreneurship-related tasks (Chen et al., 1998), and it is the ability that entrepreneurs have in the process of engaging in entrepreneurial actions, and the degree to which they are expected to be able to do it, which is a subjective assessment (Ajzen, 2001). Therefore, entrepreneurial self-efficacy can be regarded as a subjective evaluation and cognition of the entrepreneur’s ability to complete the entrepreneurial activities.
Entrepreneurial intention can be said to be a mental state that guides human attention to focus on a specific goal or behavior in order to achieve a certain result (Bird, 1988). The starting point of behavior (Krueger Jr. et al, 2000), if an individual plans to establish his own business in the future, it is called entrepreneurial intention (Thompson, 2009). Therefore, the entrepreneurial intention can also be regarded as an idea generated by the individual’s internal concepts and preferences, which are inclined to establish a new business in the future, and after considering the opinions of important stakeholders and their own favorable conditions.
In addition, entrepreneurship education also affects the entrepreneurial mindset. Entrepreneurial mindset is a cognitive phenomenon that reflects a deep but malleable cognitive structure (Krueger Jr., 2007), so entrepreneurial mindset has also been recognized as a key element of entrepreneurial effectiveness in the learning process of entrepreneurship education (QAA, 2018). McMullen and Kier (2016), from the perspective of escalation of commitment, believe that the entrepreneurial mindset is the ability to identify and exploit opportunities, and further propose four different mindset dimensions, including regulatory focus (Individuals exhibit specific tendencies to promote or prevent in the achievement of goals), action phase mindset (Refers to individuals not pursuing all opportunities at the same time but acting in stages), deliberative mindset (Mentality that evaluates carefully when faced with opportunities) and implemental mindset (Strong execution ability in pursuit of goals).
3. Concept and Implications of Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is learning from experience, or learning by doing (Kolb, 1984). It is a process of creating and transforming experience into knowledge, skills, attitudes, emotions, beliefs, and feelings (Jarvis et al., 1998). It can be said to be a cognitive process and an active behavior, including reflection and action. Through reflection on experience, individuals understand the meaning structure of action, give meaning to experience, and then generate knowledge to guide future behavior (Fenwick, 2000). It is also a learning method involving the various mental abilities of a person, which exists when the learner processes information in an active and immersive environment (Feinstein et al., 2002).
In light of this, experiential learning theory can be said to be that after experiencing an experience, the individual reflects on the experience, and it is through this reflective process that one can transform it into knowledge, which in turn influences the individual’s future actions (Bélanger, 2011). Therefore, experiential learning refers to the process of transforming experience into applied knowledge, which occurs through reflection on experiences, assumptions, and beliefs (Karami & Tang, 2019). Reflection internalizes experience, and then acquires knowledge, skills, behaviors, emotions, judgments, attitudes, changes and grows, and then reapplies the cycle process.
Kolb (1984) believed that learning is the process of becoming knowledge through the acquisition and transformation of experience, and further divided this process into four parts: concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experience, which believe that individuals complete learning through a cyclic process composed of these four stages. And this learning process will be combined with the individual’s life, grow, change, and learn together with their own experiences and encounters. Even if the events faced by different individuals are the same, they will be constructed due to the different background knowledge that individuals have different experiences.
It has been 30 years since Kolb put forward the theory of experiential learning. With the increasing emphasis on the field of entrepreneurship in recent years, the role of entrepreneurship education has become more and more important. With the continuous development of higher education, the experiential learning pedagogy with learner-centered thinking has also been paid more and more attention, and has been gradually introduced into the field of entrepreneurship education. However, the current research on experiential learning pedagogy in entrepreneurship education still lacks a theoretical, systematic and pedagogical analysis, and the discussion on “how” to teach is less discussed. Therefore, this study will explore the impact of entrepreneurship education pedagogy on service start-ups from an experiential learning perspective.
4. Development of Service Start-Ups in Creative Living Industries
Due to the improvement of living standards, consumers are increasingly paying attention to the quality of living, coupled with the pursuit of high-quality aesthetics and in-depth experience, making the creative living industry increasingly valued. The creative living industry is an industry that “integrates the core knowledge of the living industry with creativity and provides in-depth experience and high-quality aesthetics” (Ministry of Economic Affairs, 2020). It covers the food, clothing, housing, transportation and other related industries that ordinary consumers will come into contact with in their daily lives (Ministry of Culture, 2009; Fan, 2015). Therefore, the creative living industry can also be said to be based on the traditions of tourism, leisure, catering, etc. The service industry is a type of creative industry that has been further developed through cultural and creative value-added and experience as a channel of contact.
As the economy has entered an experience-oriented era, consumers’ pursuit and yearning for a better life have also led to the rapid development of the creative living industry, further attracting young entrepreneurs to engage in entrepreneurial activities in the cultural and creative field. However, young entrepreneurs also encounter many difficulties. 86% of young entrepreneurs are micro-entrepreneurship, with an average survival of 3.9 years, and the shortest survival is only one month. Among them, starting a business in the category of cultural and art marketing has an average survival of only 2.9 years, which is much lower than the average survival time. The main reason is that the market changes rapidly. If you cannot keep pace with the times and propose corresponding products or services, you will face the pressure of being eliminated. Among them, nearly 80% of micro-entrepreneurs cannot survive for more than 3.9 years (104 Job Bank, 2021), shows that when young people start a business in the cultural and creative field, they will not be able to respond to market demand in a timely manner due to their lack of market expertise, and will lose opportunities in the face of numerous peer competitions, resulting in entrepreneurial failure.
The reason for the above problems is that the cultural and creative industries are mostly micro-enterprises, lacking business models to integrate and connect industries, and lack of professional talents such as business management concepts and cross-domain integration, marketing, and strategies (ExpBravo, 2018), It shows that entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industry must have certain entrepreneurial knowledge, ability and characteristics in order to survive in the fiercely competitive industrial environment. However, only 35% believe they have the skills and resources needed to start a business, and only 34% agree that Taiwan’s education has taught people the skills they need to start and run a business, which is not only lower than the global average of 40%, which is far lower than the Asian average of 53% (Amway, 2018), indicating that the current entrepreneurship education cannot effectively help young entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries to acquire entrepreneurial knowledge, ability and characteristics. Education for further research is necessary.
5. Method
5.1. Research Design and Selected Participant
Based on this research design, in order to identify the experiential learning model for entrepreneurship education, the experimental design in this study can be developed into the structure shown in Figure 1. In this design structure, Kolb’s
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Figure 1. Structure of experiment design.
experiential learning model will be applied to selected research cases as an entrepreneurship education curriculum to assess the impact and entrepreneurial impact of this experiential learning model. The selected courses and experiments have a total of fifteen entrepreneurship teaching units and a team project to carry out new entrepreneurial practices in the context of the creative living industry. The four types of experiential learning in the Kolb model will also be applied to the learning journey this semester. And qualitative interviews were conducted during the course of a semester, at the end of a semester, and after the end of a semester to further collect data on students throughout the learning process to determine their entrepreneurial learning in entrepreneurial recognition and mentality. Impact in a changing context.
The participants are students from the leisure industry department of a university in Taiwan who have taken the “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” course. The type of course is a compulsory course, and it is aimed at first-year students who have just entered the school. They are between the ages of 18 and 19. The participants have no experience in taking higher education entrepreneurship-related courses in the past.
This course starts from September 2020 and runs to January 2021. The course has a total of 17 weeks. A total of 53 people participated in the course. In the middle, 3 people dropped out due to personal factors. The total number of participants was 50. In the course, the participants form an entrepreneurial team by themselves. The members of the team are between 4 and 6, and finally they are divided into 10 groups in total.
5.2. Data Collection
In the data collection section, in order to further understand the evolution of students throughout the learning process, to determine how their entrepreneurial recognition and mindset during the entrepreneurial learning process are affected in the changing environment, semi-structured interviews will be used to collect data. There are three phases: the eighth week of the course, the last week of the course and one year after the course. Understand how students change in the middle of the course, at the end of the course, and one year after the course ends. Through these three stages, finally collect and analyze the data of students at different stages in the whole learning process, and further understand the differences and changes of entrepreneurial recognition and mindset at different time points.
The core content of the interview consists of four stages of Kolb’s experiential learning, three items of entrepreneurial recognition and four items of mindset. Since this study wanted to understand the application of experiential learning in entrepreneurship education courses, and to further understand the differences between entrepreneurial recognition and mindset at different stages, the direction of the interview was to ask respondents what they thought about the course and what they would incorporate after the conclusion.
Before starting the interview, the researcher briefly explained the interview process in a public place. All participants were guaranteed personal privacy. After the explanation, questions were opened on the spot until it was confirmed that all the interviewees clearly understood the interview process. Then start to schedule a feasible interview time. Considering that most of the participants had taken other courses, most of the interviewees arranged time to be interviewed individually over the course of a week. The interviews were conducted by the author in a number of different locations, from the campus area, the interviewee’s rental house to the local coffee shop, and the interview process was also recorded at the same time as a record.
The above-mentioned Kolb’s experiential learning model will be used in the university’s entrepreneurship education courses. The syllabus of the course starts from “Course Description” and ends with “Creative living industry business plan report”, a total of 17 times. The course outline is presented in Table 1.
In this study, Kolb’s experiential learning concept will be used to change the current entrepreneurial education model. In the entrepreneurial training scenarios shown in Table 2, four Kolb teaching modes will be adopted: “Learning by
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Table 1. The course outline of implication Kolb’s experiential learning concept.
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Table 2. Implication of Kolb’s experiential learning concept in entrepreneurship education.
Feeling”, “Learning by Seeing/Listening”, “Learning by Thinking” and “Learning by Doing”. This table shows the background of the experimental design of entrepreneurship education in terms of instructional design methods, Taiwan’s creative living industry background, curriculum learning objectives, teaching materials, and possible external resources in the teaching of “learning by feeling” and “learning by doing”.
This study also provides an assessment framework to understand the impact of experiential learning processes on entrepreneurship education. Based on the results of the literature review, this study identifies the potential impact of current entrepreneurship education and selects a structure of entrepreneurial recognition to represent how learners identify themselves based on their knowledge and entrepreneurial readiness, and another structure of entrepreneurial mindset that is able to Perceive, act on, and mobilize entrepreneurial opportunities. Table 3 shows selected structures for evaluating the impact of entrepreneurship education in this proposed experiential learning experimental design.
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Table 3. Selected constructs for entrepreneurship education evaluation.
In the part of data analysis, in order to increase the reliability and validity of the research results, this study adopts the triangulation method to strengthen the relationship between each data and the interpretation, so as to improve the reliability of the data. In order to reduce the possible errors or omissions in the researcher’s observation or interview, and improve the accuracy of the data, the interview process was recorded, and the recording file was cross-referenced with the verbatim transcript (data triangulation), and then the research assistant was invited. Assist in confirming records (investigator triangulation); finally, pass the interview verbatim to interviewees for confirmation and finalization (investigator triangulation).
5.3. Data Analysis
For data analysis from the collected data in the proposed course design, this research uses thematic analysis to analyze the text data. According to the qualitative data analysis method proposed by Kao (2001), the interview content is written into text after the interview, and events and context are discovered through the reading of the text. Read the structure and empirical construction of analytical meaning again, and confirm the common theme and reflection, and finally complete the analysis through the verification of the research team. The detailed steps are shown in Figure 2.
In the end, the participants of this course produced a total of 10 sets of reports, the themes of which were: Japanese kimono jacket, compound bar, shoe bar, pet hotel, first aid bracelet, environmentally friendly trash can, Shushi Food Co., Ltd., cosmetics Integrated platforms, fishing boat-themed restaurants, and refined Chinese cuisine, each group has an entrepreneurial theme that they think and choose by themselves.
In the part of the background of the interviewees, considering that the interview
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Source: Kao (2001).
Figure 2. Thematic analysis process.
questions involved their thoughts on the course, 4 participants who had never been absent and participated in the course throughout the course were screened out as interviewees, codenamed S1, S2, S3, S4. S1 is a female, age 18, a first-year college student who has lived in a non-urban area of Kaohsiung for 18 years and completed her past education at a local district school; S2 is a woman, age 18, a first-year college student, who has lived in the metropolitan area of Taiwan and South Africa for 18 years, and completed the past education stage in the local area school; S3 is a female, age 18, a first-year university student who has lived in the Taoyuan metropolitan area for 18 years, and completed the past education stage at a local school; S4 is a male, age 18, a freshman who has lived in the Kaohsiung metropolitan area for 18 years and completed the past education stage at a local school.
In the interview part, the first interview was conducted within 7 days after the end of the 8th course and before the start of the 9th course; the second interview was conducted after the end of the 17th course 7 days; the third interview was conducted one year after the course and completed within 7 days. Each interview lasts about 45 minutes to 90 minutes. The content of the interview is composed of Kolb’s four stages of experiential learning, entrepreneurial recognition and mindset. Since this research wants to understand the application of experiential learning in entrepreneurship education courses, and to further understand the differences between entrepreneurial recognition and mindset at different stages, the direction of the interview is to ask the interviewees’ thoughts on the course, and they will be consolidated after the end.
6. Results
This section will introduce the research results based on the in-depth interviews from entrepreneurship education students. Our data analysis shows the influence of Kolb’s experiential learning from the proposed course design in this experiment. The findings can be raised as two parts including the overall impact of experiential learning on entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurial recognition, and the evolutionary change of entrepreneurship learning journey from student entrepreneurs during and after the course.
6.1. The Impact of Experiential Learning on Mindset and Recognition
Analyzing the learning impact from seven constructs of entrepreneurial recognition and the entrepreneurial mindset through the Kolb’s experiential learning by our interview process, it can be seen from the interview data analysis that the Kolb’s teaching method has the greatest impact on entrepreneurial readiness and mentality in the action stage which can be elaborated in the following and shown in Table 4.
Entrepreneurial Readiness
For entrepreneurial readiness, the respondents generally believed that the implementation of Kolb’s curriculum had a positive impact through lecture content, worksheets, reflections, and entrepreneurial plans. The reflection from the students indicates that the entrepreneurial readiness can be gradually developed by the learning process about marketing, 4P4C, how to define customer groups, and how to raise funds. In addition, because this class is an introduction to entrepreneurship, the students are talking about the basic ideas that entrepreneurship will encounter. After they have a clearer understanding of entrepreneurship and what they actually should do, it can also be identified what they want to do in the study list. Meanwhile, the process of learning integration brings the whole picture of entrepreneurial structure and system for developing their entrepreneurial readiness.
Action Phase Mentality
For action phase mentality, the respondents generally believed that the implementation of Kolb’s curriculum had a positive impact through lecture content, worksheets, reflections, and business plans. The reflection from the students shows that when every time they discuss with the teacher it is a progress to
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Table 4. Interview structure for experiential learning evaluation.
Notes: ●: None; ●●: A little; ●●●: Possible; ●●●●, be considered to have; ●●●●●, definitely have.
make them form a habit of completing it step by step in stages. In addition, because the activity assignments and study sheets come one by one, they will follow the progress of the current class to complete the progress, and is capable to learn this way of doing things. For developing the action phase mentality, it is also useful to better split big goals into small ones to execute and practice, the feedback also shows that because a business plan is a collection of everything, a lot can be learned during the writing process to be done in stages.
In the part of Learning from Feeling, respondents’ entrepreneurial recognition content includes basic knowledge and tools of entrepreneurship, self-confidence, difficulty and danger of entrepreneurship. Respondents’ opinions at this stage mostly come from the experiences and cases they encountered in the course, and they interpret readiness, self-efficacy, and intention through their own perspectives. In this aspect, the focus is on the basic knowledge of entrepreneurship acquired from the course experience and the confidence in the face of difficulties and dangers in entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial mindset includes four parts: risk assessment and stop-loss point, goal planning and gradual completion, serious consideration of the possibility of failure in advance, and mandatory and regular output. From this, it can be seen that the respondents’ views on entrepreneurial mentality through their own observation and experience are mostly focused on taking the possibility of failure seriously beforehand, and regularly accomplishing goals after risk assessment.
In the part of Learning by Watching/Listening, the respondents’ content of entrepreneurial recognition includes knowing the general direction and cognition, accumulating the foundation of self-confidence through practice, and the support of resources and abilities. Respondents at this stage mostly gained learning experience on entrepreneurial recognition through practice and observation. This dimension focuses on knowing the general direction of entrepreneurship through practice and observation, and accumulating self-confidence through practice with the support of resources and abilities. In the part of entrepreneurial mindset, there are four parts including practicing the method of avoiding risk, completing step by step in order, individual’s specific approach to prudent assessment, and execution in real situations. From this, it can be seen that the respondents’ views on the entrepreneurial mentality through their own observation and experience mostly focus on practicing the method of avoiding risks, and how to complete the execution of tasks in sequence under the condition of careful evaluation.
In the Learning by Thinking section, respondents’ entrepreneurial recognition included understanding success factors through team discussions, confidence from internal and external support, and willingness and difficulty to start a business. Respondents gain a learning experience of entrepreneurial recognition through self-reflection at this stage. This dimension focuses on understanding success factors through team discussions, supporting confidence through internal and external factors, and seeing entrepreneurial intentions from the willingness and intention of starting a business. In the part of entrepreneurial mindset, it includes four parts from internal and external desire and stop loss of risk, doing one thing well, the result of important events, and striving to achieve the goal of personal interests. At this stage, the respondents’ views on entrepreneurial mentality through reflection mostly focused on internal and external desire and risk-stopping, how to do an important thing well so that it can have good results, and achieve vital interests.
In the part of Learning by Doing, the respondents’ content of entrepreneurial recognition includes summarizing and summarizing through the writing of entrepreneurial plan, increasing confidence by completing tasks, and improving self-confidence after completing difficult challenges. Respondents gained experience in learning entrepreneurial recognition through hands-on learning at this stage. This aspect mostly focuses on how to increase one’s confidence after completing difficult challenges such as the business plan. In the part of entrepreneurial mindset, there are four parts: the desire to pursue the goal, the step-by-step achievement of each goal, the actual evaluation of the vital interests, and the ability to execute under pressure. At this stage, the respondents’ views on the entrepreneurial mentality through practical methods mostly focus on the execution of the pressure to complete the goal step by step, as shown in Table 5.
6.2. Entrepreneurship Learning Journey of Student Entrepreneurs during and after the Course
According to the entrepreneurial framework proposed by Ndou et al. (2018), this research adopts the framework to analyze the students’ learning journey from entrepreneurship education including these following four phases: 1) inspiration phase which means the focus of this stage is to generate a broad entrepreneurial awareness related to entrepreneurship, aiming to give the target students a basic concept of entrepreneurship. 2) engagement phase which means focusing on creating specific entrepreneurial capabilities, competencies and skills, aiming to equip target students with the knowledge and ability to identify and evaluate opportunities. 3) exploitation phase which indicates the focus of the third stage is to create the ability of the target students to actually start a business, aiming at giving the target students the ability to solve problems. 4) sustainment phase which is the final stage focusing on providing technology, tools, resources, knowledge and capabilities for the target, aiming to enable the target students to continue to generate entrepreneurial value through entrepreneurial ability in the future.
It can be seen from the interview materials that the interviewees think that the content of the entrepreneurship course is something they have never thought about before, and the course is presented through sorting/integration/cases, etc., so that the interviewees can understand/know/learn/Improve your initial concept/basic knowledge/rough framework/basic idea of entrepreneurship, in line with the description in the inspiration stage, as shown in Table 6. Therefore, we can know that in the first stage of the learning process, the interviewees can
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Table 5. Keyword for experiential learning evaluation.
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Table 6. Learning effect from Kolb’s experiential learning in inspiratio stage.
build their own extensive and basic knowledge about the field of entrepreneurship, so that they can have a good understanding of what entrepreneurship is, what entrepreneurship includes, and what fields entrepreneurship involves. The preliminary understanding provides a solid foundation for the subsequent establishment of more professional knowledge and skills.
Respondents believe that through the content of entrepreneurship courses, they can have sufficient evaluation/judgment skills when facing incentives/markets/entrepreneurial opportunities/demands/directions/trends, so as to avoid losses/create target value/enter the market, it is consistent with the engagement stage, as shown in Table 7. From this, we can see that through the second stage in the learning process, the interviewee has the knowledge and ability to identify and evaluate opportunities, and then provide direction for future activities.
It can be seen from the interview data that the respondents believe that through the content of the entrepreneurship course, they can have the practical ability to do/implement/turn into action/application/actually do/actually/prepare. Problems/solving problems, and finally gaining the ability to start a company from scratch/actually start a business, this part is consistent with the exploitation stage, as shown in Table 8. In view of this, we can know that in the third stage of the learning process, the respondents can build the practical ability to do it, and provide the execution ability for the actual entrepreneurial activities in the future, and continue to create value.
In addition, the respondents also believed that through the content of the entrepreneurship courses, they could have the ability to understand entrepreneurship-related activities and carry out activities such as fund raising/manufacturer negotiation/opportunity judgment/profit evaluation through the use of relevant technologies and tools, this part conforms to the final sustainment stage, as detailed in Table 9. Therefore, we can know that in the fourth stage of the learning process, the respondents are able to combine the entrepreneurial ability they
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Table 7. Learning effect from Kolb’s experiential learning in engagement stage.
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Table 8. Learning effect from Kolb’s experiential learning in exploitation stage.
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Table 9. Learning effect from Kolb’s experiential learning in sustainment stage.
have learned with their daily life, and continue to apply them to entrepreneurial activities to further create value for entrepreneurial activities.
To summarize the elaborated findings from this learning journey, the impact of Kolb’s experiential learning process can be also identified into these four continuous and accumulative stages. This study proposes Figure 3 as a summary to present the experiential learning journey by entrepreneurship education.
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Figure 3. Experiential learning journey by entrepreneurship education.
7. Discussion
The purpose of this study is to apply experiential learning theory to entrepreneurship education courses, to further understand the impact of experiential learning theory on Entrepreneurial Recognition and Entrepreneurial Mindset in entrepreneurship education courses, and to further understand the reasons for the failure of young entrepreneurs in creative life industries. It is hoped that this can change the problem of the high rate of youth entrepreneurship and further promote the vigorous development of the creative living industry.
In the part of Entrepreneurial Recognition, from the interview results, it can be found that the two dimensions of Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy and Entrepreneurial Intention are not highly recognized, which means that the respondents have low confidence and entrepreneurial intention to complete their entrepreneurial tasks. Part of the reason may be that young entrepreneurs think that the complexity of entrepreneurship is related to the high difficulty, so they choose to give up entrepreneurship and directly enter the job market after completing the course.
In the section of Entrepreneurial Mindset, it can be found from the interview results that in the three dimensions of Regulatory Focus, Deliberative Mindset and Implemental Mindset, the respondents do not have a high degree of identity with these three dimensions, which means that the respondents have The desire to pursue goals, setting a stop loss point when facing high-risk goals, a cautious evaluation mentality, and the ability to execute goals in pursuit of goals are less agreeable. In Regulatory Focus, part of the reason may be related to the fact that the course did not specifically arouse the desire of respondents and the lack of entrepreneurial failure cases, thus further causing respondents to fail to understand specifically how to exit after entrepreneurial failure. In Deliberative Mindset, part of the reason may be that the corresponding units are not properly arranged in the course, resulting in the failure to further promote the interviewee’s opportunity to be cautiously assessed. In Implemental Mindset, part of the reason is that the case content in the course does not describe in detail the content of breaking through the predicament, leading respondents to believe that a single course cannot develop the execution ability to pursue goals.
8. Conclusion
This study can provide several observations on the application of experiential learning in the entrepreneurship education curriculum. In the impact of experiential learning on mindset and recognition, Entrepreneurial Readiness and Action Phase Mentality have the greatest impact. The four stages of experiential learning have a great impact on each, and the respondents’ responses after taking the course are all focused on “be considered to have” and “definitely have” can be confirmed. Therefore, we can understand that through experiential learning, in addition to allowing learners to have a clearer understanding of entrepreneurship and what they should really do, they can also clarify what they want to do in the worksheet. At the same time, the process of learning integration brings a full picture of entrepreneurial structures and systems to develop their entrepreneurial readiness. In the part of Action Phase Mentality, students can learn through regular discussions with teachers, homework in each stage of the course, and writing business plans, and further develop the concepts and habits of staged completion, which will be beneficial to future completion goals and Schedule planning will be of great help.
In addition, this study also found that experiential learning had a less significant impact on Entrepreneurial Intention and Implemental Mindset, and the respondents’ responses were concentrated in the scope of “A little” and “Possible”. The main reason is that the respondents believe that they currently lack relative resources and believe that actually investing in real entrepreneurial activities means facing more risks and difficulties, so there is no significant impact on Intention and Implemental.
In the section on the learning entrepreneurship journey, the impact of Kolb’s experiential learning process can be broken down into four sequential and cumulative phases. Respondents had a preliminary understanding and concept of entrepreneurship education in the first stage, which provided a solid foundation for the subsequent establishment of more professional knowledge and skills. In the second stage, the knowledge and ability to identify and evaluate opportunities are prepared through the content of the course, and then provide direction for future activities. Then, in the third stage, you will have the practical ability to do it, and then provide the execution ability for the actual entrepreneurial activities in the future, and continue to create value. When the respondents have successfully internalized and used the curriculum, in the fourth stage, they can integrate the entrepreneurial ability they have learned with their daily life, and continue to apply it to entrepreneurial activities to further create entrepreneurial activities value.
In view of the above findings and results, first of all, given that experiential learning has received positive feedback from the respondents in terms of entrepreneurial preparation and mentality in the action stage, it is suggested that teachers of future entrepreneurship education-related courses can incorporate worksheets and regular discussions into their curriculum planning and incorporate them into curriculum planning. May help learners grow in Entrepreneurial Readiness and Action Phase Mentality.
Secondly, in view of the relatively low feedback of respondents on Entrepreneurial Intention and Implemental Mindset, it is suggested that entrepreneurship education teachers can strengthen the content of resource acquisition, risk reduction, and major crisis management in the course in the future, so that learners have the necessary skills for entrepreneurship. resources, understanding the ways of reducing entrepreneurial risks and the specific methods of dealing with major crises, will help improve learners’ Intention and Implemental mindset towards entrepreneurship, achieve better entrepreneurship education results, and promote the development of entrepreneurship education in the creative life industry develop.
Third, judging from the feedback from the respondents, it was repeatedly mentioned that the course content can increase the exit method after the failure of entrepreneurship. It is suggested that teachers of entrepreneurship education-related courses in the future should incorporate the specific exit mechanism of entrepreneurial failure into the entrepreneurship education curriculum. At the same time, a chapter on entrepreneurial failure has been added, so that young entrepreneurs can relieve the hesitation and helplessness of facing failure alone, and further promote young entrepreneurs to invest in entrepreneurial activities in the creative life industry.
9. Limitations and Future Lines of Research
First, the sample only includes leisure students from one university. To generalize the conclusions to other student groups, more students from different backgrounds are required to participate, such as: business, finance, etc. Therefore, future studies should use new and more diverse samples.
Furthermore, since the students in this study participated in compulsory entrepreneurship courses, the data of the participants of the elective courses were not collected, and it is suggested that future research can simultaneously include the experimental comparison with the participants of the elective courses to further understand the different course types of participants in the Is there a difference in learning.
Since the surveyed subjects of this study are all students, they are relatively lacking in their experience and influence after college graduation. Therefore, it is suggested that the research should include the experience after college into the scope of the survey, and find out whether this teaching method can improve their post-college, face-to-face experience, competitiveness, and effectiveness in the external environment.