Digital adoption in Entrepreneurship Education in the time of Covid-19 - The impacts and lessons to learn and apply for post-Covid-19. A Mutiple Case Study

Abstract

Digital adoption has already been a discussion topic among academia for years, but the education industry was still reluctant to try embracing digital to deliver lectures or organize classes, until the disruption caused by Covid-19; the pandemic has undeniably affected a lot of fields, including Entrepreneurship education (EE). For the first time in the academy's history, adopting digital solutions to transit to emergency remote teaching was set up. While Entrepreneurship Education has its own differentiated nature of “theory - practical emphasis" to equip students with knowledge, entrepreneurial skills to deal with ambiguities and to bring ideas into practice; such a sudden transition is even more challenging with the field always requiring dynamics and high attention in engaging with students interactively. With ‘OHWI’ framework, this research investigate if there is change in the Objective of educating entrepreneurship due to Covid-19, capture How these process of digital adoption has been implemented in entrepreneurship education during the time of pandemic, followed by analysing What teaching methods and learning activities have newly adapted due to the situation, and to assess Impacts brought by the Coronavirus, so as to condense lessons learnt and potentially able to apply when the pandemic is over. With an explorative approach for this multi case study, the author interviewed 11 teachers and 12 students in 6 universities in Netherland, Sweden and Singapore. The findings indicate that more attention and assistance is given to educators (in ‘how to teach’) than students (in ‘how to learn') with their unsolved obstacles and unmet needs during their remote learning process. On the other hand, organizing interacting, entrepreneurially engaging lectures are among key responsibilities of the teachers, while diverse initiatives were applied by some of them, they are encountering additional multitasking challenge. Moving forward, every stakeholder expects to go back to campus, however hybrid mode is suggested to inherit legacy from the process of digital adoption in EE during Covid-19, at the same time allowing more flexibility for both teachers and students. Nevertheless, the decision maker should aware their insight driving the propose of new study mode, to avoid potential risks and to achieve EE's expected quality.