In a nutshell
Students’ entrepreneurial identity and intent don’t develop in neat upward curves. Even with the support of enterprise education, the process is messy, emotional, and riddled with dips, doubts, and rethinks.
When it comes to developing entrepreneurial identity and intent in higher education, the story isn’t necessarily one of steady progress as previously believed. In fact, it’s often more of a zigzag than a straight up climb. This mixed-method longitudinal study followed 18 first-year UK university students through an entire academic year of enterprise and entrepreneurship education (EEE), collecting fortnightly diary entries alongside survey data. The aim was to track not just where students ended up, but how they got there.
What the researchers found challenges some persistent assumptions: entrepreneurial identity and intent, while often linked, don’t always move in tandem — and certainly not in a straight line. Some students exhibited what the authors call “convergence,” where their identity gradually caught up with existing intent. Others followed a “synchronicity” pattern, with both constructs rising and falling in tandem, shaped by personal experiences, coursework, and external pressures like assessments and holidays.
These patterns weren’t just academic abstractions, but they were often intensely personal. The diary method revealed the students’ surprisingly emotional landscapes, with some students drawing themselves as stick figures with missing limbs to illustrate a lack of capability. Weighing scales also appeared frequently, depicting their struggle to balance “entrepreneur” with “student,” “part-time worker,” or “daughter.” Figuring out who they were (or wanted to be) as entrepreneurs was messy, uncertain, and often clouded by self-doubt.
Publication Date: May 2025
Authors: Sarah Preedy, Peter McLuskie, Andreas Walmsley, Kelly Smith
Institutions: University of Plymouth, Keele University, Plymouth Marjon University, University of Birmingham
Study Type: Mixed-method longitudinal study
Sample Size: 145 survey respondents; 18 diary participants
Research Focus: How entrepreneurial identity and intent develop in the first year of higher education
Research Methodology: Surveys and fortnightly reflective diaries over one academic year
Main Findings: Entrepreneurial identity and intent developed unpredictably, shaped by emotion, academic pressure, and identity conflict. Two developmental patterns emerged: “convergence” and “synchronicity”. Female students more frequently reported self-doubt and identity mismatch, and EEE influenced both confidence and motivation types, but impact was uneven across students.
Citation: Preedy, S., McLuskie, P., Walmsley, A., & Smith, K. (2025). Development of entrepreneurial identity and intent in the early years of higher education. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research. Link
That self-doubt particularly emerged as a major obstacle among female students, who voiced greater hesitation in adopting the entrepreneurial label — not due to lack of ability, but a sense of not quite fitting the role. Meanwhile, others who began the year with high intent saw it fade not because they failed, but because the daily grind of university life left little room for experimentation or risk. The pressures of coursework, deadlines, and competing identities made the “entrepreneur” label harder to sustain.
EEE did, however, produce some changes. For some, it was a turning point: growing knowledge led to growing confidence, and with that, a new way of seeing themselves as potential entrepreneurs. Others experienced a more subtle but significant shift in why they wanted to pursue entrepreneurship, with a few moving away from “get rich quick” dreams and towards more intrinsic motivations like autonomy or meaningful work, hinting at a fundamental change in their entrepreneurial values.
The nuanced picture that this study painted raises some interesting questions about how we measure impact. If you just look at the before and after, it might not seem like much changed over time. But that misses the inner turbulence, the flickers of doubt, surges of motivation, identity decay, and the slow, uncertain process of becoming someone new that unfolds beneath the surface. If the study leaves us with one clear takeaway, it’s that entrepreneurship education isn’t just about sparking intent — it’s about navigating identity. And that, by nature, is a bumpy ride that’s best approached with solid seatbelts, realistic maps, and flexible suspension.
