Work-In-Progress: Facilitating Engineering Students’ Entrepreneurship Through Self-Regulated Learning Instructions

Ying Wang; Joy Harris; Janece Shaffer

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division Technical Session 2
Page Count: 16
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--40673
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/40673
Download Count: 300

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Paper Authors

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Ying Wang Georgia Institute of Technology

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Dr. Ying Wang received her Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University in 2021. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on STEM students' self-regulated learning and particularly the metacognitive and motivational aspects in students' learning processes.

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Joy Harris

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Janece Shaffer

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Abstract

This Work-in-Progress study investigates the implementation of an innovated engineering entrepreneurship education program integrated with self-regulated learning (SRL) practice at a southeastern public university. Entrepreneurship education programs have become prevalent across engineering schools nationally and globally. While SRL demonstrates positive effects on students’ learning, little is known about how to integrate SRL in teaching that facilitates engineering students’ learning in entrepreneurship. Through a quasi-experimental study, we assume that students who participate in SRL activities will improve their entrepreneurial skillset and mindset and demonstrate improved learning outcomes in an entrepreneurship course. Research has suggested that SRL is beneficial for students to develop entrepreneurial skills [1]. In other words, effective entrepreneurs regulate their cognition, metacognition, and motivation to adapt to new environments and unexpected challenges, make appropriate decisions, and overcome obstacles, which overlap with the essential elements in SRL [2], [3]. SRL describes a phase-like learning model that includes students’ goal setting and planning before a task, strategic actions and monitoring during a task, and self-reflection and evaluation after a task [4]. To understand how SRL plays a role in understanding and fostering engineering students’ learning in entrepreneurship, we are conducting an ongoing intervention study that provides students with SRL support in addition to the regular teaching activities. Our main purposes of the study include 1) contextualizing SRL into the entrepreneurship course; 2) providing students with SRL practice to support their learning in entrepreneurship; 3) identifying and assessing the learning and psychological outcomes related to SRL that indicate students’ growth in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset. The work-in-progress study is the pilot study of the ongoing intervention study. Students receive self-reflection relevance writing prompts throughout the course. The writing prompts are designed to facilitate students’ self-regulatory skills in cognition, metacognition, and motivation in a way that cultivates students’ learning and application of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. Specifically, students self-reflect upon their learning experiences related to the topics taught in the entrepreneurship course and potentially form entrepreneur identities from connecting their real-life experiences and the learning content in the course. Currently, we have started implementing the writing prompts in an introductory entrepreneurship course to test our study materials in Spring 2022. We plan to conduct a full-scale study in Fall 2022. Data include pre- and post- entrepreneurial knowledge familiarity tests, entrepreneurial self-efficacy scales, creative mindset scales, an epistemic curiosity scale, and students’ written self-reflection responses. We expect results to show increases in students’ learning and the impact of SRL on students’ learning in entrepreneurship-related concepts and application through self-reflection in the full-scale study. The findings of this work will demonstrate the impact of SRL in an entrepreneurial learning context using theory-grounded pedagogical practices.

Citation
Format

Wang, Y., & Harris, J., & Shaffer, J. (2022, August), Work-In-Progress: Facilitating Engineering Students’ Entrepreneurship Through Self-Regulated Learning Instructions Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--40673

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This Work-in-Progress study investigates the implementation of an innovated engineering entrepreneurship education program integrated with self-regulated learning (SRL) practice at a southeastern public university. Entrepreneurship education programs have become prevalent across engineering schools nationally and globally. While SRL demonstrates positive effects on students’ learning, little is known about how to integrate SRL in teaching that facilitates engineering students’ learning in entrepreneurship. Through a quasi-experimental study, we assume that students who participate in SRL activities will improve their entrepreneurial skillset and mindset and demonstrate improved learning outcomes in an entrepreneurship course. 
Research has suggested that SRL is beneficial for students to develop entrepreneurial skills [1]. In other words, effective entrepreneurs regulate their cognition, metacognition, and motivation to adapt to new environments and unexpected challenges, make appropriate decisions, and overcome obstacles, which overlap with the essential elements in SRL [2], [3]. SRL describes a phase-like learning model that includes students’ goal setting and planning before a task, strategic actions and monitoring during a task, and self-reflection and evaluation after a task [4]. To understand how SRL plays a role in understanding and fostering engineering students’ learning in entrepreneurship, we are conducting an ongoing intervention study that provides students with SRL support in addition to the regular teaching activities. Our main purposes of the study include 1) contextualizing SRL into the entrepreneurship course; 2) providing students with SRL practice to support their learning in entrepreneurship; 3) identifying and assessing the learning and psychological outcomes related to SRL that indicate students’ growth in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset.
The work-in-progress study is the pilot study of the ongoing intervention study. Students receive self-reflection relevance writing prompts throughout the course. The writing prompts are designed to facilitate students’ self-regulatory skills in cognition, metacognition, and motivation in a way that cultivates students’ learning and application of entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. Specifically, students self-reflect upon their learning experiences related to the topics taught in the entrepreneurship course and potentially form entrepreneur identities from connecting their real-life experiences and the learning content in the course.
Currently, we have started implementing the writing prompts in an introductory entrepreneurship course to test our study materials in Spring 2022. We plan to conduct a full-scale study in Fall 2022. Data include pre- and post- entrepreneurial knowledge familiarity tests, entrepreneurial self-efficacy scales, creative mindset scales, an epistemic curiosity scale, and students’ written self-reflection responses. We expect results to show increases in students’ learning and the impact of SRL on students’ learning in entrepreneurship-related concepts and application through self-reflection in the full-scale study. The findings of this work will demonstrate the impact of SRL in an entrepreneurial learning context using theory-grounded pedagogical practices. 

AU  - Ying Wang
AU  - Joy Harris
AU  - Janece Shaffer
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Work-In-Progress: Facilitating Engineering Students’ Entrepreneurship Through Self-Regulated Learning Instructions
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/40673
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--40673
ER  -