The competence in innovation and entrepreneurship education among Chinese university teachers: a latent profile analysis

With the rapid expansion of innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE), understanding the competencies of university teachers in this field has become increasingly important. This study employs the latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify and examine distinct competency subgroups among university IEE teachers. The study surveyed 396 university teachers specializing in IEE in China. The findings indicated that IEE competencies encompassed eight dimensions: entrepreneurial mindset, professional mindset, ambition, optimism, self-efficacy, professional knowledge, enterprising skills, and teaching ability. Latent profile analysis identified three distinct subgroups of IEE teachers: the high IEE-competent group, the average IEE-competent group, and the moderate IEE-competent group. Moreover, multinomial logistic regression analysis demonstrated that university IEE teachers with prior experience in entrepreneurship management or innovation-entrepreneurship research possessed significantly stronger instructional competencies in IEE than those without such knowledge. These results provide empirical evidence linking teachers' personal and professional backgrounds to their IEE instructional practices, and highlight the critical role of experiential learning in developing pedagogical competence.