Building entrepreneurial self-efficacy in engineering students: towards a new methodological framework

Engineering education often prioritises technical skills over the development of creativity and entrepreneurial thinking. Measuring the efficacy of entrepreneurship education (EE) remains challenging, as traditional metrics—such as startups launched, or funding raised—are impractical for students to show achievement on during a course of study. Hence, we adopt the European Commission’s EntreComp framework to assess entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) through competency-based outcomes. An 8-wave quasi-experimental study with 95 postgraduate students (10% engineering, 90% non-engineering) was performed during the 2023–24 academic year. Students completed an EntreComp-aligned entrepreneurial aptitude test (EAT) at induction and after each of seven experiential EE ‘touchpoints’. We tested five hypotheses focused on self-efficacy gains, cumulative effects, disciplinary and gender differences, and competency-level variation. To enhance methodological robustness, we triangulated survey data with tutor observations and critical reflections on student artefacts. Results showed a significant overall increase in ESE (Δ M  = + 2.27, p  < .001). Gains were cumulative, with distinct patterns by academic background and marginal gender effects. The strongest improvements were in ‘Valuing Ideas’, ‘Taking the Initiative’, and ‘Working with Others’. These findings demonstrate that scaffolded, experiential EE can effectively build entrepreneurial competencies, particularly cognitive and behavioural ones. The study offers engineering educators a robust method to evidence and enhance entrepreneurial impact in diverse student cohorts.