Questions we care about The potential of play is widely acknowledged and employed in children’s learning. This study examines the use of playful learning methods in entrepreneurship education. We are interested in how university students could be trained and supported in their capacities to think and act like entrepreneurs. During the past decade, interest has been in bringing more playfulness to adult contexts regarding leisure, learning, and even working life. While playful learning pedagogies have emerged as part of adult education during the past years, their possibilities have been largely ignored in supporting entrepreneurial thinking and skill sets to be developed within entrepreneurship education.

Approach We turn to Fayolle, Gailly, and Lassas-Clerc (2006, p. 702) following their definition of an entrepreneurship education program as: “any pedagogical program or process of education for entrepreneurial attitudes and skills, which involves developing certain personal qualities. It is therefore not exclusively focused on the immediate creation of new businesses.”

In this paper, we bridge the enterprising competencies (van Gelderen 2017) with various rhetorics of playfulness as presented in earlier play theory and student perceptions of playful learning.

Results In the study, we focus on playful learning in association with a course titled “Entrepreneurial Opportunities” at a School of Economics in Finland. In 2022 and 2023, we designed and gave this course[1], during which the students were given assignments related to opportunity recognition to perform over intensive days. Through reflective feedback, we gathered data from the students inquiring about their ideas on play and their responses to using playful approaches, such as materials and methods, as part of learning. In our study, we first asked how students perceive play and, second, how they perceive play(fulness) in entrepreneurship education, and third, how they perceive that they have adopted enterprising competencies during their coursework. Our results indicate that playful methods expose students to tolerating uncertainty in safe classroom environments.

Implications The study's findings may enhance future entrepreneurship education, especially the use of creative materials as part of playful learning to support enterprising competencies.

Value/Originality Our study's contribution links the previously unconnected areas of entrepreneurship with playful learning and student perceptions of the creative materials and methods used during two university courses. By linking enterprising competencies with the rhetorics of play(fulness) identified in the students' reflections, we better understand the connections and similarities between entrepreneurial thinking and play(fulness).

Keywords: playful learning, playfulness, learning methods, creative materials, entrepreneurship education

[1] Acknowledgements: The authors wish to express gratitude to Dr. Sanna Ilonen, who previously taught the Entrepreneurial Opportunities course, for her invaluable contributions to the course's structure, content, and selection of course readings.