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Abstract
Sarasvathy's theory of effectuation identifies thinking patterns and heuristics of successful entrepreneurs. One proposed use of effectuation theory is as a framework for entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we survey the literature on effectuation as it relates to entrepreneurship education. Through a systematized literature review, we identify existing work and analyze it using Bloom's taxonomy and Pellegrino's assessment triangle. Our findings show that more thoughtful, research connections may help realize the effectuation's educational potential. We suggest an opportunity to re-contextualize the role of effectuation in entrepreneurship education from serving as content to serving as a cornerstone of assessment.
Executive summary
Simply increasing our understanding of effectuation as a theory is insufficient to build effective educational practice. Researchers and educators continue to work towards refining approaches that link entrepreneurship to entrepreneurship education. In this paper, we systemically review existing literature at the intersection of effectuation and entrepreneurship education to understand what is known, what is unknown, and where the field of effectuation education should go next.
Existing evidence indicates that students use less effectual logic than expert entrepreneurs use, but can shift towards more effectual thought through entrepreneurship education. From a more nuanced perspective, which we build using Bloom's taxonomy, experts use effectuation and causation together in more evaluative and complex ways than students do. Experts use of effectuation and causation together supports arguments for teaching both effectuation and causation to aid in building metacognitive understanding and fluency in approach, a suggestion which exists in literature (Mäkimurto-Koivumaa & Puhakka, 2013).
From another perspective, built on a framework of effective assessment, the typical approach in effectuation research has been to look for more or less occurrences of effectuation. Such an approach has limited as effectuation education moves forward. Instead, of being the behavior that is observed, effectuation fits more effectively as a way to interpret the behavior of entrepreneurship students.
We conclude this paper by proposing a set of research questions, and a role for effectuation in entrepreneurship education: Use effectuation as a means of framing programs and assessment rather than as the cornerstone content of entrepreneurial classes and programs. Instead of content (i.e., teaching effectual heuristics), effectuation becomes a tool to assess students' understanding, application, and evaluation of predictive and non-predictive techniques.
Introduction
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