Student Assessment of Venture Creation Courses in Entrepreneurship Higher Education—An Interdisciplinary Literature Review and Practical Case Analysis

Abstract

Entrepreneurship Education (EE) is growing and considered to support many beneficial economic and personal developments. This article aims to enrich the scarce research on student assessment in EE, because assessment is a powerful tool to motivate and encourage students to engage in and experiment with venture creation activities even when they have no initial intrinsic motivation in entrepreneurial practice. First, EE research and assessment literature from related disciplines were analyzed. Second, the derived results have been used to redesign student assessment in an undergraduate venture creation course. Lessons learnt—what worked well and what did not work well—are discussed. The results indicate that more innovative assessment formats are needed because they are best suited for action-based, experiential, and learning-by-doing (ABELD) venture creation courses. An enriched pool of assessors, peer feedback as well as reflective self-assessment, and a shift to formative and process-oriented assessment are promising student assessment methods in this context, because they account better for ambiguous entrepreneurial real-life situations. However, educators’ resources should be taken into account. The article contributes to our understanding of student assessment of venture creation courses in EE in higher education and offers practical recommendations for educators.