Entrepreneurship Education for Women in Engineering: A Systematic Review of Entrepreneurship Assessment Literature with a Focus on Gender

The nation’s economic vitality and global competitiveness depends on the creativity and innovation of its citizenship. While institutions of higher education nationwide are being pressured to train and produce a highly skilled technical workforce, engineering schools are especially challenged with preparing their students to anticipate societal needs and translate their technical expertise into commercializable solutions. In response to this challenge, engineering schools have begun incorporating entrepreneurship education programs within their curriculums. Regardless of differences in size, scope, and student participation, generally, these programs are intended to provide students with fundamental business skills and foster an entrepreneurial mindset. While research has shown that entrepreneurship education programs do increase science and engineering students’ entrepreneurial intent, potential differences in outcomes based on gender were not examined. Additionally, what is occurring within entrepreneurship education environments that might be influencing women’s entrepreneurial outcomes and experiences? Curious about how gender has been addressed in entrepreneurship education scholarship with respect to assessment, a systematic literature review of entrepreneurship education research, to date, as found in two databases that cover engineering, business, and education literature and extracted articles that specifically focus on gender was conducted. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, the search yielded 24 articles for this review. In addition to synthesizing current entrepreneurship education assessment research with an emphasis on gender, this review also provides recommendations for engineering education researchers who desire to examine how entrepreneurship education environments influence women. The purpose of this review is to guide future research on engineering entrepreneurship through a gendered lens. Further, this review serves to inform the development or improvement of existing engineering entrepreneurship education programs that seek to attract and retain more women.