Entrepreneurial mindset assessment: a systematic literature review using PRISMA model

Procedure for extracting documents

The foundation for the entire data extraction and screening process was created using the PRISMA statement architecture created by Moher et al. (2009). Three databases, EBSCO, ERIC, and SCOPUS, were used to conduct a thorough search of published literature. The Figure 1 below is a prisma framework diagram illustrating the process of data extraction and screening.

Figure 1. PRISMA statement flow chart for extracted documents.

Interpretations of data extraction and screening

The primary focus of the search was to map the existing literature on entrepreneurial mindset assessments across various fields. The search spanned from 2015 to 2024, and was not limited to any specific geographical area. This systematic search utilized tailored strategies for the EBSCO, ERIC, and SCOPUS databases. For EBSCO, the search criterion included phrases “entrepreneurial mind set measurement,” “measurement of entrepreneurial mind set,” and “assessment of entrepreneurial mind set.” For the ERIC database, the search specifically targeted peer-reviewed documents related to entrepreneurial mindsets. Two search criteria were employed for SCOPUS: the first criterion focused on titles (“entrepreneur* mind set*” OR “entrepreneur* mind-set*”), while the second criterion combined “entrepreneur*” with either “mindset” or “mind-set.”

All databases were refined using limiters to include only documents classified as “cp” or “ar” and written in English. Initially, this yielded 143 documents from EBSCO, 105 documents from ERIC, 411 documents from the first SCOPUS search, and 502 documents from the second SCOPUS search, totaling 1161 documents. After removing 13 duplicates, 1148 unique documents remained. Further filtering for the period 2015 to 2024 led to the removal of 173 documents, leaving 975. A quality assessment based on the relevance to the objectives of the study led to the removal of 848 documents, leaving 88. Finally, selecting only full documents suitable for review removed 49 more documents, leaving 39 documents for this systematic literature review. The list of these 39 documents is indicated in Table 1 below.

Basic characteristis of extracted documents

The essential characteristics of the documents retrieved from EBSCO, ERIC, and SCOPUS include the database type, geographical origin, publication year, publisher information, document classification, and journal or document title. The subsequent figures illustrate the presentation format of these attributes. Figure 2 below shows the number of documents extracted from each database.

Figure 2. Databases of extracted documents.

As shown in Figure 2, out of the 39 extracted documents, 34 originated from the SCOPUS database, with three sourced from EBSCO and two from ERIC. The countries of origin of the extracted documents are shown in the figure below.

As depicted in Figure 3, out of the 39 documents examined in this review, their origins were distributed as follows: one from Korea, two from Malaysia, one from Portugal, two from Russia, two from South Africa, thirty from the USA, and one from the USA and Chile. This distribution underscores the predominance of the research conducted by American scholars. The number of extracted documents published each year is shown in the figure below

Figure 3. Countries orgins of documents.

Figure 4 illustrates the distribution of documents based on the publication year. Specifically,there were three documents were published in 2016, two in 2017, ten in 2018, seven in 2019,five in 2020, one in 2021, five in 2022, and six in 2023. Notably, the highest proportion of documents were published in 2018, constituting 25.6% of the total document count. The names of the publishers of the selected extracted documents are diagrammatically illustrated in the figure below:

Figure 4. Publication year of documents.

As depicted in Figure 5, the distribution of publications by various publishers is as follows: one document each from the Academic Research Publishing Group, American Psychological Association, Elsevier Ltd., Frontiers Media S. A., IEEE Computer Society, International Association of Online Engineering, Springer, and Universiti Putra Malaysia. Two documents were published by MDPI and Tempus Publications. Notably, the majority of documents, specifically 27 (69.2%), were published by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). This concentration aligns with the focus of these articles on engineering. The nature of the extracted documents is diagrammatically presented as follows.

Figure 5. Publishers of extracted documents.

As illustrated in Figure 6, among the 39 extracted documents, there were 19 conference papers, 18 research articles, and two review articles. Consequently, the largest portion of these documents, 19 (48.7%), were conference papers. The journals of the extracted documents are shown in the diagram below.

Figure 6. Nature of extracted documents.

As indicated in Figure 7, the majority of the documents, comprising 17 (43.6%), were conference papers from ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings. Six (15.4%) documents were research articles published in the Journal of Advances in Engineering Education. 2 (5.1%) were presented at the FYEE Conference. Two (5.1%) were research articles in the International Journal of Engineering Education, and another two (5.1%) were research articles in the Sustainability Journal. The remaining 12 documents were individually mentioned in various journals and conference proceedings as indicated in the figure.

Figure 7. Journals of extracted documents.

Validity and reliability

The assessment approaches for the entrepreneurial mindset discussed in the extracted documents along with their status of validity and reliability are presented in Table 2 below:

As shown in Table 2, among the listed entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches, the Kern Engineering Education Network (KEEN) is the most prevalent, used in 15 of the documents. This was followed by the Entrepreneurial Minded Learning (EML) survey, which is utilized in six documents, the Engineering Students Entrepreneurial Mindset Assessment (ESEMA) Survey in five documents, and the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP) in three documents. The I-Corps L-EPA Mindset has been mentioned in two documents. All other entrepreneurial mindset approaches were individually mentioned only once. Table 2 also illustrates that out of the 18 entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches, 14 (77.8%) demonstrated validity and reliability. Two approaches (11.1%) lacked evidence of validity and reliability, whereas the validity and reliability of the remaining two approaches (11.1%) were not specified in the documents. This finding aligns with those of Huang-Saad et al. (2018). The entrepreneurial traits and skills used to assess entrepreneurial mindsets were individually specified in the extracted documents. The researcher meticulously identified these traits and skills from the entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches in the extracted documents. The results are shown in the the following Table 3 below:

Table 3 presents the prominent entrepreneurial mind-set traits and skills utilized by the assessment approaches in the extracted documents. It includes 16 entrepreneurial mindset traits and 8 entrepreneurial mindset skills that have appeared two or more times, disregarding those mentioned only once. The most frequently employed trait is risk-taking, as noted in eight documents. Creativity and self-confidence are tied in second place, each appearing in five documents, followed by the need for achievement and proactiveness, each appearing in four documents and ranking third. Curiosity, future orientation, leadership, and locus of control are ranked fourth, each appearing separately in the three documents. The last group of traits—autonomy, independence, passion, optimism, persistence, open-mindedness, and relationship— appeared in two documents separately.

Among the entrepreneurial mindset skills indicated in Table 3, opportunity recognition and innovation, each mentioned in six documents, were the most frequently cited. The following are ideation (idea generation), connections (communication), creating value, and problem-solving, each mentioned in three documents. Finally, teamwork and the ability to learn are mentioned separately in the two documents.

Reseach methodologies

The research methodologies utilized in the literature for this review are depicted in terms of the research design, sampling methods, and data collection instruments employed. The research designs utilized in the extracted documents are presented in the diagram below.

As depicted in Figure 8, 15 documents did not specify the research designs utilized. Among the specified research designs, survey research was the most commonly used, appearing in more than 12 documents (30.8%). Following the survey research, four documents (10.3%) employed the literature review method. The other eight research designs were mentioned once in the individual documents. The sampling methods utilized by the extracted documents are presented diagrammatically as follows.

Figure 8. Research designs of document.

Figure 9 illustrates that the most commonly used sampling method is the arbitrary selection of respondents, which was employed in 13 instances (33.3%). Following this, document selection was performed eight times (20.5%) and simple random sampling occurred in six instances (15.4%). Notably, sampling methods were not specifically mentioned in 4 documents (10.3%). The other sampling methods were mentioned only once.

Figure 9. Sampling methods of documents.

Areas and subjects of study

The areas of study in the extracted documents are shown in the following diagram:

Figure 10 indicates that the most common study area is education, particularly engineering education, as evidenced by 36 (92.3%) of the 39 documents, while the remaining three (7.7%) studies focused on business organizations. The subjects of the studies in the extracted documents are diagrammatically presented as follows.

Figure 10. Areas of study of documents.

Figure 11 indicates that for 24 documents (61.5%), the subjects of their studies were students, making them the most common subjects in the literature review. Additionally, seven documents (17.9%) indicated various types of documents as subjects of their studies. The remaining subjects were individually recruited only once.

Figure 11. Subjects of study of documents.

Findings of the literatures

The key research findings from the extracted documents can be classified into entrepreneurial mindset assessment instruments and their developments, measurement of entrepreneurial mindset, interventions for entrepreneurial mindset development, and studies on entrepreneurial mindset assessment.

Surveys are the predominately used tools for assessing the entrepreneurial mindset within educational institutions. One widely used survey is the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP), which is a valid and reliable measure of entrepreneurial activities endorsed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (Davis et al., 2016). Another notable measurement tool is the Entrepreneurial Minded Learning (EML) survey, which assesses entrepreneurial mindset in terms of curiosity (CUR), connections (CON), and creating value (CV), and has proven to be reliable and valid (Morano, Henson and Cole, 2020). The integration of EML with engineering courses has been shown to cultivate future engineers with an entrepreneurial mindset (Park, 2019). The College Students Entrepreneurial Mindset Scale (CS-EMS) is a promising assessment tool for evaluating the efficacy of entrepreneurship education (Jung and Lee, 2020). Additionally, the Entrepreneurial Mindset Learning Index and the Entrepreneurial Mindset Learning Effectiveness Index are proposed tools to quantify the outcomes of entrepreneurial mindset teaching (Li et al., 2016).

The extracted documents contained a significant number of studies that focused on researchers’ endeavors to develop entrepreneurial mindset assessment tools. These studies include the development of frameworks for measuring students’ entrepreneurial mindsets and incorporating various traits, skills, and complementary factors. The works of Zhu, Baumann and Lichtenstein (2019), Wigner et al. (2022), Fernandez and Duval-Couetil (2017), Brunhaver et al. (2018), Cui and Bell (2022), Estell (2020) and Blake Hylton and Hays (2019) highlight this area of research. Some entrepreneurial mindset assessment tool development processes are based on the KEEN framework, as observed in the works of Samantha R. Brunhaver et al. (2018), Estell (2020), Li et al. (2019), and Blake Hylton and Hays (2019). Wigner, Kuang, and Miceli (2022) presented a work in progress on developing a new instrument for the entrepreneurial mindset assessment of students. This new instrument was developed based on the evaluation and analysis of previously utilized entrepreneurial mindset assessment tools. Zhu et al. (2019) aimed to develop a rubric to guide the development of students’ entrepreneurial mindset through an engineering course. Fernandez and Duval-Couetil (2017) explored the development of the Factorial Effectuation Survey (FES) to assess changes in students’ decision-making processes resulting from changes in the decision-making context.

The reviewed literature presents varying findings regarding the assessment results of students’ entrepreneurial mindsets after completing the relevant courses. For example, Ritchie (2023), Li et al. (2019), DeWaters and Kotla (2023), Ita et al. (2023), and Ritz et al. (2022) observed significant improvements in the overall levels of the entrepreneurial mindset and specific entrepreneurial traits. Conversely, according to Jackson et al. (2022) and Rozan and Zibarzani (2018), students demonstrate minimal changes in entrepreneurial mindset throughout their training. Rozan and Zibarzani (2018) further noted that the majority of students did not develop entrepreneurial or workforce mindsets.

The findings from the reviewed literature also shed light on the degree of change in the entrepreneurial mindset due to various factors presumed to influence it. Jung and Lee (2020), Carnasciali et al. (2021), Li et al. (2019), and Hochgraf et al. (2022) reported no significant differences in students’ mindsets based on gender. Although educational experience is considered a major influencing factor, it does not bring about significant changes in students’ entrepreneurial mindsets (Jung and Lee, 2020). Students with entrepreneurs as close relatives demonstrate stronger entrepreneurial mindsets than those without such relatives (Dahalan et al., 2018).

The literature also highlights a positive correlation between college training levels and students’ entrepreneurial mind-sets (Dahalan et al., 2018). There are discernible differences in entrepreneurial mindset levels between students engaged in business activities and those who are not (Fernandez and Duval-Couetil, 2017). Interventions in the form of curricular and non-curricular components in colleges and universities have proven effective in developing overall entrepreneurial mindsets, as well as specific traits and skills associated with entrepreneurial mindsets (Erdil & Harichandran, 2023; Hultén & Tumunbayarova, 2020).

Non-empirical studies outweigh empirical studies on entrepreneurial mindset assessment (Huang-Saad et al., 2018). Zappe (2018) recommends that entrepreneurial education programs be built on attributes of knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA). However, there is limited exchange of information and experience among scholars across the disciplines of business, engineering, and education in studies related to entrepreneurial mindset assessment (Huang-Saad et al., 2018). Hence, communication among scholars regarding the results of entrepreneurial mind-set assessment studies should be improved in the future.

Lessons learnt from this systematic literature review

First, it is evident that the majority of the studies in this literature review were conducted in the United States, with relatively few studies in Asia, Africa, and Europe. This indicates the need for research on entrepreneurial mindset assessments across different regions globally. Evaluating the applicability, reliability, and validity of existing entrepreneurial mindset assessment techniques in various contexts is crucial. Testing the applicability of these approaches in new contexts or localities is vital for advancing the field of study.

This comprehensive literature review also revealed that most research efforts currently focus on education, particularly in engineering education. The primary subjects of these studies are engineering college students, with course materials and teaching personnel forming a small portion of the subjects. In these contexts, the evaluation of entrepreneurial mindsets often relies on the KEEN (Kern Engineering Education Network) framework, incorporating the 3 C’s of curiosity (CUR), connections (CON), and creating value (CV) either fully or partially. Therefore, more efforts should be made to diversify both areas and subjects of study in entrepreneurial mindset assessment research.

Researchers have made multiple efforts to develop a more comprehensive and effective instrument for measuring entrepreneurial mindset. This is evident from the considerable number of studies in this review that have concentrated on developing new entrepreneurial mind-set measurement tools. The dynamic and subjective nature of the entrepreneurial mindset concept, along with the lack of consensus among scholars on its meaning and assessment approaches, may contribute to this trend. Therefore, a clear and widely accepted definition and assessment approach for an entrepreneurial mindset is essential.

Most of the current entrepreneurial mind-set assessment tools are survey based. Some of the commonly used frameworks include the KEEN framework, the ESEMA framework, the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP), the Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile 10 index (EP 10), college students’ entrepreneurial mindset scale (CS-EMS scale), and various tools developed by colleges and universities based on the KEEN framework. Many of these tools refer to the KEEN framework’s 3C’s of curiosity (CU), connections (CON), and creating value (CV) in their development.

Scholars in colleges and universities continue to make ongoing efforts to develop new entrepreneurial mindset assessment tools. Notable endeavors include the University of Haven, Arizona State University, and Michigan State University’s efforts to develop new entrepreneurial mindset assessment tools. From a different perspective, some engineering colleges have aligned their entrepreneurial-minded course content with selected entrepreneurial mind-set behavioral outcomes.

Limitations of the study

Relying solely on a systematic literature review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement may be one of the limitations of this study. The use of additional data collection procedures could have expanded the literature pool and offered more insight into the topic. Future studies should consider incorporating diverse data collection methods to enrich the literature. However, these limitations do not undermine the value of this investigation and its results. The study still contributes valuable knowledge about prevalent approaches to assessing entrepreneurial mindset, the focal points of these assessments, the geographic origins of relevant literature, the subjects studied, and key research findings in the field.

The study utilized only three databases for the systematic literature review, which made this study overlooking possible additional relevant documents to a certain extent. Despite this, the review provides valuable insights into the existing literature on entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches, study focuses, reliability and validity evidence, research methodologies, etc. This contribution aids in expanding the understanding of the subject and guiding future research.

Another limitation is the exclusion of incomplete documents, even if they meet the inclusion criteria. This decision was deliberate, recognizing that incomplete papers, such as those with only abstracts, may not offer sufficient information. Including such papers could have added fragmented or inadequate insights to the study.

Future agenda

Based on the reviewed literature, it is evident that most studies on entrepreneurial mindset assessment have been conducted in the USA. To broaden its scope, future research should explore this topic in the context of other countries. Most studies have focused on education, particularly engineering. This findings align with the finding of Mckenna et al. (2018) which state that 55% of Entrepreneurial Mindset research articles from 2009 to 2018 centered on engineering education. Hence, future studies should encompass non-engineering facets of education and extend them to areas such as politics, societal endeavors, and business organizations. Additionally, research subjects should include individuals from the societal, public, and private sectors, and not be limited to students.

The prevalent entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches in the reviewed literature rely heavily on the KEEN framework, indicating the need for researchers to explore alternative, empirically valid, and reliable methods. Traits, skills, and attitudes used to gauge entrepreneurial mindsets should be critically analyzed and grouped into more manageable categories for universal adoption. Moreover, considering the distinct characteristics of different study subjects, efforts should be made to identify and categorize the traits, skills, and attitudes relevant to each subject during mindset assessments.

Survey research design dominates the research design landscape in the reviewed literature, suggesting the necessity for future studies to employ other research designs independently or in combination with surveys. Regarding sampling, arbitrary selection and simple random sampling are common; however, future studies should incorporate other relevant sampling methods appropriate for the population’s nature, size, and context to enhance perspectives and outcomes.

Conclusion

This literature review presents existing practices for the assessment of entrepreneurial mindsets. It reveals the most commonly used assessment mechanisms, the basic characteristics of the literature in terms of country of origin, research designs and sampling methods used, the type of literature, traits and skill sets utilized, and the principal findings of the literature. It also indicates the gaps in entrepreneurial mindset assessment approaches and the main research agenda of the future in this field of study.

Since entrepreneurship holds significant value for nations, as it fosters the growth of private enterprises within the economy, individuals need to cultivate suitable entrepreneurial mindsets. Numerous strategies exist to nurture this mindset among individuals, tailored to their current entrepreneurial mindset levels. An entrepreneurial mind-set assessment should be conducted to understand its current status before employing mechanisms to build it. This study explored prevalent approaches to assessing entrepreneurial mindsets. However, ongoing efforts are required to comprehensively enhance these tools. A robust assessment tool will facilitate the effective cultivation of entrepreneurial mind-sets for successful future entrepreneurs.

One of the factors that plays a significant role in the success of individuals and organizations is a well-developed entrepreneurial mindset. Consequently, accurately assessing entrepreneurial mindsets is becoming increasingly vital. Educational establishments should employ appropriate entrepreneurial assessment approaches to understand the existing entrepreneurial mind-set status of their students before implementing mechanisms to improve it. Business organizations are also advised to utilize appropriate methods for assessing the entrepreneurial mindsets of their employees to produce an effective workforce.