Article
Who, Me? Increasing High School Girls’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, Knowledge and Intentions
Collectif
(2020)
Abstract
This paper provides a case study of two female-only
entrepreneurship education programs designed by faculty from Brescia
University College, Canada’s only women’s university, located in London,
Ontario, Canada. The programs were designed to address the substantial
gender gap found in women’s participation in entrepreneurial activities by
inspiring, educating, and exposing program participants to entrepreneurial
endeavours. One program was a one-day conference and the other was
a one-week boot camp. The study was designed to better understand how
to strengthen the female entrepreneurial pipeline by measuring changes
in entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), and
entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Program participants were asked to complete
pre- and post-experience questionnaires where information about
leadership experiences, role models, entrepreneurial knowledge, ESE, and
EI was collected. The results of the analysis reveal that the gender-specific
programming increased ESE in the one-week camp and that both programs
significantly increased both objective and self-perceived knowledge of
entrepreneurship. The authors conclude that the female-only educational
interventions helped to transform adolescent girls’ sense of entrepreneurial
possibilities. We recommend a scaffolded and integrated approach to future
entrepreneurship education programming to address and ultimately close
the entrepreneurship gender gap.
Keywords
- entrepreneurship,
- entrepreneurial education,
- women's entrepreneurship
Disciplines
Publication Date
Winter April 1, 2020
Citation Information
Melissa Jean and Colleen M. Sharen. "Who, Me? Increasing High School Girls’ Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, Knowledge and Intentions" Collectif Iss. 2020 (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/colleen-sharen/4/