Maintaining Confidence in the Face of Realistic Challenges

Most of the time, learning entrepreneurship through action-oriented training works really well. The student gets to try their hands at what it would be like to actually go through the process in a controlled and pedagogical environment, learning practical knowledge and skills that will help them in their future career. However, this kind of realistic entrepreneurial training is much like a rollercoaster ride; you get the riveting ups, but also the daunting downs. And sometimes these downs are more frightening than they are exciting. If they’re scary enough they might even make you question the structural integrity of the entire rollercoaster — and your own sanity for getting on it. More specifically, facing these challenges can be detrimental to some students’ belief in their ability to succeed, their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. This does not necessarily mean that those students are not suited for entrepreneurship, but rather that there is something missing from the action-oriented pedagogy.

Enter error mastery orientation, the unsung hero of entrepreneurship education. It means to approach challenges with optimism and resilience, to view setbacks as opportunities to grow rather than failures, and learning this mindset is crucial to maintaining entrepreneurial self-efficacy. At least this is what a recent study by Carina Bohlayer and Michael M. Gielnik reveals. Their research showed that students with low error mastery orientation experienced a drop in self-efficacy when facing training problems, while those with high error mastery orientation maintained their confidence and handled the challenges with more ease. Because they kept their self-efficacy throughout it they also came out of the experience with stronger entrepreneurial goal intentions, meaning they were more motivated to put effort into starting a new venture in the future.