Abstract
Entrepreneurship self-assessment tools in entrepreneurship education (EE) are widely used to assess learners’ entrepreneurial competencies and tendencies. Nevertheless, there does not appear to be a corresponding debate or meta discourse around the level of their use, application and efficacy in shaping learners’ entrepreneurial identities. The purpose of this structured literature review is to collect, document, scrutinise and critically appraise the current research literature on entrepreneurship self-assessment tools, with the intention to ensure, as far as possible, all literature in the field was identified, while keeping the focus on the pertinence to the research questions. The findings highlight that despite the use of self-assessment tools in EE, there is little sense of a shared discourse around these tools and the extent to which they shape learner’s entrepreneurial identities. However, the paper identifies key themes related to the divergent views of how entrepreneurship is defined and what should be measured. Besides, the paper identifies the diversity of entrepreneurial identities represented and defined by these tools, and the functions by which these are applied in either predicting learners’ behaviour or as a tool to reflect upon their entrepreneurial competencies. This paper represents the first comprehensive literature review of entrepreneurship self-assessment tools, identifying gaps in research and areas for future inquiry. It challenges the EE community to critically assess these tools’ theoretical foundations and to foster a more robust academic discussion about their role and purpose in EE.