Comparison of Two Survey Instruments for the Assessment of Entrepreneurial Mindset.

Conversations regarding outcome assessment naturally precipitate as the entrepreneurship curriculum matures from certificates and minors to undergraduate and graduate degree programs. In general, the assessment conversation begins with a discussion and comparison of entrepreneurial skills versus entrepreneurial mindset. The assessment of skills, such as the ability to discern information from a balance sheet or the ability to create a robust business model, is a more straightforward endeavor than documenting a temporal change in mindset. Questions such as, "Have we changed how a student thinks about risk?" or "Have we affected a student's perception on the feasibility of becoming an entrepreneur?" are more difficult to answer than skills assessment from a metrics-based perspective. However, progress is evident in the development of tools to document entrepreneurial mindset and hence through longitudinal studies measure the potential impact of curriculum and co-curricular activities on changing mindset. This paper compares and contrasts two relatively new tools for assessment of entrepreneurial mindset: (1) Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP), which has origins back to 2010 at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and (2) Entrepreneurial Profile 10 Index (EP10), by Gallup with underpinnings in 2009. Both are web-based surveys. For this research, 70 undergraduate students majoring in math, science, or engineering completed both instruments. Forty students were enrolled in an Introduction to Entrepreneurship course, with the remainder enrolled in an Introduction to Engineering Management course. The instruments are first compared based on the authors' perspective of practical mechanics, such as ease of administration, the time required for completion, instructions to students, formatting of questions, and access to results to name a few. Additionally, the research presents a correlation study of results for the same students taking both instruments. In addition, students who participated in the research were surveyed to gain insight into their experience when completing the instruments, such as time allotted, clarity of questions, and understanding of results. Finally, students were asked to express their judgment on the perceived value of these instruments to provide useful knowledge about their entrepreneurial mindset. The results of this research are particularly relevant to faculty and administration interested in measuring changes in entrepreneurial mindset by adopting a commercially available assessment instrument or by developing an in-house instrument. Faculty interested in the concept of the entrepreneurial mindset, whether they use the EMP, EP10 or some other psychometric instrument as a classroom activity or assessment are a secondary audience for results presented herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]