A Bayesian Updating Approach to Evaluate Entrepreneurship Education

In their recent study, employing a new approach to evaluate entrepreneurship education based on Bayesian Updating, Graevenitz et al. (2010) show that attending an entrepreneurship course helps students to find out about their entrepreneurial aptitude and supports them to better self-select into entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. Although the overall intention to start a business decline during the course, students have stronger opinions about which career path, entrepreneur or not, suits them better. Depending on what they learn, students may adjust their opinions about their entrepreneurial aptitude upwards or downwards. This view of entrepreneurship education significantly differs from the notion in the literature. All of the studies presented in subsection 1.2.3 hypothesize a positive effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. This misses the sorting – i.e. learning – benefits highlighted in von Graevenitz et al. (2010) and in this chapter.