Comparative analyses of the educational methods in the leading business development masters programmes in Hungary

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is a rapidly growing research field, emphasizing the role of education institutions in developing entrepreneurial skills and attitudes. We examined the leading Hungarian business development programmes to explore the prominent educational and technological trends of the programmes from four perspectives: (1) usage of practice-oriented and experimental teaching methods, (2) how the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the digitalization of education, (3) preparation of future entrepreneurs for the digital economy and (4) fostering entrepreneurship through extracurricular offers. We carried out 36 questionnaire-based interviews with professors of the investigated universities, comparing the results to a student survey covering more than 60% of active business development students in master programmes. The results suggest that the investigated programmes are practice-oriented, using practical examples. During COVID-19, different online platforms have been introduced at all three universities, widely used and adopted by both teachers and students and positive changes have been incorporated in teaching after the return to face-to-face. New digital trends and skills are already present in the curriculum, but students are less aware of them, so further development is needed in this area. Also, developments in terms of providing infrastructural, networking and financing-related services would be highly valued by students with entrepreneurial intent.