Measuring Entrepreneurship Competence Progression: Evidence from Muslim Youth in Australia

Abstract

Entrepreneurship competence is increasingly recognised as a critical driver of entrepreneurial behaviour and venture creation among young people. The European Entrepreneurship Competence Framework (EntreComp) has become one of the most widely adopted frameworks for conceptualising and assessing entrepreneurship competence; however, most empirical applications rely on self-assessment instruments that capture perceptions of capability rather than progression, and therefore offer limited insight into competence progression. This study addresses that gap by examining entrepreneurship competence progression among Muslim youth in Australia through the Entrepreneurship Competence Progression Index (ECPI), a progression-based measurement approach aligned with the eight-level EntreComp progression model. Drawing on survey data from 109 Muslim youth aged 18 to 25 across Australia, the study evaluates competence across the three EntreComp areas. The ECPI classifies each respondent at a behaviourally anchored stage for ten non-cognitive competences — a self-report that ties self-judgement to concrete descriptions of activity rather than an abstract magnitude. Descriptive, classification, and inferential analyses compared progression-based measurement with parallel self-assessment of the same competences. Respondents were generally positioned at an intermediate level of progression (mean 3.58 on the ECPI’s 1–7 scale), with most classified at the Intermediate stage and a substantial minority at the Advanced stage. Progression varied meaningfully across competence areas, with Ideas and Opportunities highest and Resources lowest. Self-assessment scores significantly and systematically exceeded behaviourally anchored progression (mean difference 0.99, large effect), while remaining only moderately correlated with it, indicating that the two approaches capture related but distinct information. Prior entrepreneurial experience, rather than gender or schooling pathway, was the strongest correlate of progression, and religiosity was associated with self-assessed competence but not with behaviourally anchored progression, underscoring the distinction between the two. The findings provide evidence that progression-based assessment offers a more conservative and more diagnostic account of capability development than conventional self-assessment, and they extend EntreComp into an underrepresented, predominantly diaspora population. The study has implications for entrepreneurship educators, policymakers, and youth-development organisations seeking to design targeted competence-development interventions and to evaluate entrepreneurial learning outcomes more rigorously.