STEP Impact

The STEP Training aims at creating real impact by promoting entrepreneurial action and success

STEP TRAINING

The Evaluation

Scientific evaluations mainly conducted by Leuphana University Lüneburg show that the STEP Training has positive short- and long-term effects on students’ entrepreneurial behavior. The STEP Training kick-starts the students’ entrepreneurial careers. More importantly, the studies demonstrated that the positive impact sustains over several years.

To assess the impact of the STEP Training, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are used. This means that evaluation studies use the gold standard to assess the impact of interventions and comply with the highest scientific standards. Using an RCT, applicants are randomly selected into a training group and a control group. This guarantees that the students in both groups are equivalent before the training and all differences after the training can be attributed to the STEP Training. Furthermore, a pre-training measurement and several post-training measurements are used to assess the long-term impact of the STEP Training over several years.

EVALUATION

The Most Important Findings

Additional job creation

STEP students create 39% more jobs two years after the training

More business creation

STEP students own 33% more businesses two years after the training

Stronger entrepreneurial mindset

The evaluation studies also revealed mechanisms underlying the positive impact of STEP on business creation. STEP students develop a stronger entrepreneurial mindset. This means that STEP enhances students’ intentions to start a business, the confidence in their entrepreneurial skills, their knowledge about how to start a business, and their action planning for starting a new business. The stronger entrepreneurial mind-set results in students identifying more business opportunities and performing more start-up activities to start a new business.

Do you want to read more about the impact of STEP in scientific publications and studies?

Higher life satisfaction and

entrepreneurial passion

Evaluation studies also showed that STEP compensates for a lack of financial capital in the start-up process and leads to higher life satisfaction in the short- and long-run. Furthermore, STEP boosts and sustains students’ passion for entrepreneurship, which translates into higher business creation in the long-run. STEP thus impacts on a broad range of positive outcomes.