Abstract

This study examined the effect of enhanced instruction on social entrepreneurship and sustainable development content among social work graduate students (n=21) compared to students who received standard instruction for the same course (n=27). Pre- and post-test surveys were administered at the beginning and toward the end of the fall 2010 semester. Results indicated that while there is no statistically significant difference between groups at pre-test, the enhanced instruction group showed greater knowledge on social entrepreneurship and sustainable development on post-test than the comparison group. The enhanced instruction group also showed a statistically significant difference on their perceived importance of gaining understanding and knowledge of business skills in social work education than did the comparison group. The enhanced instruction group reported a combination of learning methods effective in understanding social entrepreneurship and sustainable development. The findings have important implications for social work education and practice. The non-random sampling method limits generalization of the findings.