Ester Bernadó

Professor of Entrepreneurship and Data Science at TecnoCampus

How did you experience the pilot round?

Were people rather tentative or keen on trying the assessment? The management board immediately was keen on supporting the pilot test on surveying entrepreneurial competences. With their support, we have the opportunity to conduct a large-scale test involving students and employees at TecnoCampus. However, operationalization of the pilot test requires dedicated effort if we aim at having a high response rate from participants. Thus, we designed several actions combining a communication strategy with interventions at classroom level. Our hope is that these measures will generate a substantial number of responses.

Were the findings largely what was expected within your team or did it deviate a lot from your previous thoughts? We are still in the process of analysing the results, but we found some preliminary interesting insights. For example, the best scored competences among students were “Working with others” and “Learning through experience”. This observation aligns with the university setting, as students often engage in team-based project work and continuously learn through various curricular and extracurricular activities. Unexpectedly, we found that “Digital Competence” did not score as highly as we had anticipated, which gives us some food for reflection and improvement.

What is your conclusion after the implementation of the pilot round (in your organisation)? We have noted the importance of securing engagement not only from the management board but also from program directors and ultimately, the professors themselves to ensure the completion of the survey at all levels. Entrepreneurship courses provide an ideal environment for conducting the survey, given their alignment with the skills that students acquire during these courses. However, in disciplines such as Health Sciences, obtaining support from academic staff requires more effort. In summary, we have observed that the successful execution of a large-scale pilot test relies on the engagement of multiple stakeholders. Effective communication and dissemination strategies play a vital role in obtaining this engagement.