Teaching Opportunity Recognition: Meeting the Challenges of Message, Method and Measurement

Abstract

The efficacy of experiential entrepreneurship education is often dependent upon students’ ability to identify a viable entrepreneurial opportunity early in the class or programme. Yet students often struggle with this process for a wide variety of reasons. Translating theory into the classroom may be considered a pathway to provide educators with the tools they need to help students enhance their opportunity recognition skills. In this article, we first review theories of opportunity recognition and challenges associated with teaching this topic. We then offer a pedagogy that addresses the content indicated by theory, a method of teaching the topic and propose an assessment structure. Within the pedagogical model provided, educators have the freedom to incorporate their preferred individual instructional tools to meet the needs of their learner audiences and to allow them to take advantage of their own personal resources.