The study covered a group of participants in the entrepreneurship competition following the course. Among them were both the participants in the case studies and business simulation based classes and individuals who did not attend the classes. It has to be stipulated here that, while the selection of course groups al-lowed students with different level of knowledge and skills to attend the classes (preliminary qualification tools were applied to select both excelling and weaker
An analysis of the level of knowledge about entrepreneurship… 145145 students), one can expect that the individuals who took part in the competition only must belong to people who believe they have every chance to succeed. This leads to the assumption that they must have been excelling students in terms of knowledge and skills .
As the competition results revealed a major discrepancy, both among the project participants and the external contestants, between the students of the so-called business faculties (economy related disciplines) and those of non-business ones, it appears fully justified to present the results pertaining to these groups separately. Table 24 shows a comparison of final tests results scored at business- and non-business faculties.
Table 24. Final tests results (percentage of right answers) at business- and non-business faculties – Case Simulator participants (99 persons) vs. external contestants (65 persons)
participants in Case Simulator classes
final competition participants other than
Case Simulator ones
business faculties av
erage (n = 25) non-business faculties average (n = 74)
t p
business faculties av
erage (n = 29) non-business faculties average (n = 36)
t p
knowledge assessment – final test
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 78.77 60.81 4.124 0.000 61.54 44.87 3.883 0.000 Source: Own elaboration.
Later in the chapter, a comparison is made of the knowledge of entrepreneur-ship among project class participants and the students who did not participate in the classes but took part in the final competition. The observations made and described above led to conducting separate analyses pertaining to students rep-resenting business- and non-business disciplines respectively.
Knowledge transfer efficiency assessed on the basis of test performance analysis in business faculties’ students
Within the subgroup of business faculties’ students (the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Management), test results were compared in participants in Case Simulator classes (group I, 25 persons) and in 29 control group students (group II). It is worth emphasising again that, whilst the Case Simulator
partici-Wojciech Bizon 146
pants were representative of the population of students at a particular faculty, the external contestants (control group) were probably outstanding students only. Table 25 juxtaposes final test results of group I with those of group II.
Table 25. Performance of business faculties’ students (percentage of right answers) at knowledge test – scores for project class participants (group I, 25 persons) and external student contestants (group II, 29 persons)
average
group I average
group II t p SD
group I SD group II knowledge test
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 78.77 61.54 4.730 0.000 13.56 13.16 Source: Own elaboration.
The level of knowledge related to practical aspects of entrepreneurship is the most significant index of the efficiency of project activities, quality of the developed products and their convergence with the Case Simulator goals defined at the outset. Analysing the data presented in Table 25 one may notice that, on average, the results scored by the project participants reflect a 79% accuracy of their answers. Compared to the control group scores (61.5%), this translates into a difference of over 17 percentage points (which constitutes a relative differ-ence of 21.9%). The t statistics values show that, with the significance level as-sumed (α = 95%), the differences obtained are statistically significant (t = 4.73; p
= 0.00). It proves the efficiency of the adopted teaching method in regard to the scope of entrepreneurial knowledge. These figures argue for a thesis that the Case Simulator project substantially contributed to business faculties’ students’
making up for their knowledge deficiencies regarding practical aspects of run-ning a business .
Figure 28 shows the scores for business faculties and relative differences in the scores .
Knowledge transfer efficiency assessed on the basis of test performance analysis in non-business faculties’ students The group of students representing non-business faculties (group I – partici-pants in Case Simulator classes) consisted of 74 persons. Their performance was compared with scores in the group of project independent contestants (group II – 36 persons). The analysis was performed in the same manner as the one pertaining to business faculties’ students. The results have been presented in Table 26.
An analysis of the level of knowledge about entrepreneurship… 147147
Figure 28. Level of students’ knowledge (business faculties) in Case Simulator class partici-pants and project independent contestants
Source: Own elaboration.
Table 26. Performance of non-business faculties’ students (percentage of right answers) at knowledge test – scores for project class participants (group I, 74 persons) and external student contestants (group II, 36 persons)
average
group I average
group II t p SD
group I SD group II knowledge test
ENTREPRENEURSHIP 60.81 44.87 3.897 0.000 20.26 19.85 Source: Own elaboration.
As regards the level of knowledge about practical aspects of entrepreneur-ship, the reported average results scored by the project participants neared 61%
of correct answers in the test paper, with 45% in the control group. This means a difference of almost 16 percentage points, and the relative difference of 26.2%.
The t statistic values prove the differences obtained to be statistically significant (t = 3.88; p = 0.00), which means that the teaching method applied is efficient, and supports a claim that the Case Simulator project substantially contributed to non-business faculties’ students’ making up for their deficiencies regarding practical aspects of running a business.
Figure 29 shows the results of both student subgroups within non-business faculties and relative differences in the scores pertaining to the knowledge area under study.
Wojciech Bizon 148
Figure 29. Level of students’ knowledge (non-business faculties) in Case Simulator class participants and project independent contestants
Source: Own elaboration.
Stage one – conclusions
In order to define the level of entrepreneurial knowledge in students, it is ad-visable to start from excluding students of faculties (disciplines) of economics from the analyses. This approach follows from a preliminary diagnosis, which indicated that due to the fact that many economy-related subjects are covered at the faculties mentioned, a very clear difference was reported in relation to this domain between the contestants who studied business and those who did not. This observation is in line with the contents of the project subsidy contract, which emphasised that the target group of the project was to comprise also those who have not benefited from the support before (last grade university students of non-business disciplines.)
These conclusions appear to confirm what was the driving force behind the implementation of the Case Simulator project, i.e. a fact that there is an obvious gap in training and formal education in practical perception of entrepreneurship at lower levels of education. On the other hand, orienting activities towards an alternative and innovative form of knowledge transfer and a proper selection of learning material – making it likely to match future graduates’ real demands – constitutes an effective tool for enhancing knowledge and practical skills of running a business .
To recapitulate, it is worth indicating what is probably the most important conclusion. Namely, as regards the knowledge area that is critical for the goals defined within the Case Simulator, i.e. practical aspects of business and
entrepre-An analysis of the level of knowledge about entrepreneurship… 149149 neurship, in both the business and non-business student groups there is a very clear difference between those who applied the case study analyses and the busi-ness simulation and those who did not participate in the classes. Set against the indices adopted a priori2 this observation leads to a conclusion that the absolute difference of 26.2% reported at non-business faculties proves the application of the Case Simulator toolbox of activities a success, even with a 21.9% difference at busi-ness faculties. It appears sensible, as suggested before, to expect less significant differences in students of business faculties due to both a higher absolute index value and the nature of the teaching profile focus discussed. Undoubtedly, in this context, the results obtained can be considered a success of the project measures.