EFFECT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION ON ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOUR OF SECONDARY STUDENTS IN RIVERS STATE

Abstract

The study examined effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behavior on secondary students in Rivers state. Four research questions and four hypotheses guided the study. The population of the study consisted 237 public secondary schools in twenty three education zones with student population of 118, 723. Based on students’ attendance register, a sample of 164 students from eight (8) secondary schools in four education zones was drawn using the multi stage sampling technique. Instruments used for data collection consists of Students’ Adaptive Entrepreneurial Behavior Test (SAEBT) and Students’ Adaptive Entrepreneurial Behavior Evaluation Scale (SAEBES). Data generated from trial testing were analysed using Cronbach Alpha statistics and the overall reliability index of 0.44 was obtained for the control group and the index of 0.79 for the experimental group. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyse the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Results of the hypotheses yielded a significant mean score difference between the control and experimental group on all the sub-variables of entrepreneurial behavior. Findings of the study indicate that entrepreneurship education has a far reaching effect on entrepreneurial behavior when measured on opportunity identification, conduct of feasibility study, writing of business plan and business plan presentation to the audience. Based on the findings, recommendations were made which include: that there should be prompt training of entrepreneurship education teachers for secondary school education; that the curriculum of secondary education be reviewed to include entrepreneurship education as a compulsory subject.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Education plays a very important role in socio-economic development including employment creation. With this fact, some African countries including Nigeria have put in place innovative reforms to strengthen their education systems. However, there is a limited progress in comparison with other nations of the world. This may be contributed by insufficient understanding of the positive effect that education can have on economic development (European Commission, 2009). Based on that fact, education is defined as the process of learning to live as useful and acceptable member of society. Thus, the definition of education has two key components, namely usefulness and acceptability. Usefulness may entail the process of converting a person from being non-productive to become productive in a particular society and thus an entrepreneurship education may serve the purpose. A key assumption underlying this belief is that entrepreneurial skills and behaviours are not fixed personal characteristics. They can be learned through education system using an appropriate curriculum.

However, one of the main challenges facing Nigeria education system is the appropriateness of educational package that can deliver on the skills needed to boost entrepreneurial behaviour in order to deal with unemployment issue. In attempt to address this challenge, Nigeria government introduced entrepreneurship education in the secondary school curriculum. Supplementary education policy reforms such as change in educational system from 6-3-3-4 to 9-3-4, curriculum review, teacher training and quality assurance were also put in place. To ensure effective implementation of the policy reform, the Rivers state government of Nigeria further declared state of emergency in primary and secondary education. Based on that development, secondary school students are assumed to be prepared for entrepreneurship before and after graduation.

Entrepreneurship is the recognition of an opportunity to create value, and the process of acting on the recognised opportunity, whether or not it involves the formation of a new entity (Ulrich, 2006). In Ulrich’s definition, opportunity identification and actions involved in realizing that opportunity are crucial concepts in defining entrepreneurship.  Entrepreneurship is also described as a dynamic process of creating incremental wealth such as income (Marques, 2010). According to Marques, incremental wealth is created by individuals who assume major risks in terms of equity, time, and commitment in providing additional value (innovation) and utility (satisfaction) to others.

For this study however, entrepreneurship refers to an individual’s creative action (skill) of transforming ideas or opportunities into value for self and others. This definition is considered in fewer than four dimensions. First dimension of entrepreneurship is having the capacity to be innovative. Innovativeness is depicted here as ability to generate better ideas that will result in pursuing new opportunities or taking initiative to solve problem. The second dimension is pro-activeness which indicates the stance of entrepreneurs towards opportunities: encouragement and confidence in pursuing business opportunities. The third dimension of entrepreneurship is the risk-taking and it involves the determination and courage to make resources available for projects that have uncertain future behavioural outcomes. The last dimension is the fact that entrepreneurship can be learned through education.

Based on the definition of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education refers to the process of imparting entrepreneurial skills for the purpose of shaping learners’ behaviour towards opportunity maximisation within an environment. The opportunities may include rendering service, providing goods, working for others or even generating self -employment.  Through entrepreneurship education, students should attain competence that will enable them apprehend life challenges in whatever form and take decisive steps to realize new opportunities for meeting those challenges in all aspects (Ediagbonya, 2013).  Findings from various research works found that students can acquire entrepreneurial skills through entrepreneurship education and those skills are known to influence their entrepreneurial behavior (Ediagbonya, 2013; Katundu & Gabagambi, 2014).

Entrepreneurship education curriculum provides opportunities for teachers to focus on what to teach (objectives), how to teach (method), what to emphasise (content) and what to assess (evaluation). However, other components of entrepreneurship are anchored on the objectives. The objectives of entrepreneurship education that are relevant in this study include: to enable learners recognize business opportunities in their environment; to inculcate a philosophy of turning ideas into actions; to equip learners with a range of business skills in planning, organisation and financial literacy; to develop learners in communication  and presentation of business proposal; and to develop learners in fundamental skills such as self-confidence, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving. What distinguishes entrepreneurship education from other forms of education is its emphasis on realization of opportunity and innovative ways to exploit the opportunities.

Entrepreneurs and non entrepreneurs are identified by the extent they identify ground-breaking opportunities in their immediate environments. Secondary school students should identify the enormous opportunities in their communities. However, lack of skills, and cultural norms and values may hamper the development. The researcher observed that to a greater or lesser extent, in just about every culture in Rivers state, there are skeptical or even hostile attitudinal and behavioural barriers to entrepreneurship. Hence, entrepreneurship education should aim specifically at “young people, who are typically more open to self-exploration and usually more willing to challenge new knowledge and societal prejudice than are most adults” (World Economic Forum, 2009:30). However, going by the conventional perspective which is growing and managing business, entrepreneurship education for secondary students may be confronted with many specific challenges. For example, teenage students are often not allowed to start up their own businesses or may not have full control over their financial situation. Furthermore, career choices may be part of some distant future for teenagers. As a result, educational initiatives aimed at stimulating entrepreneurship for career purposes may be perceived by teenagers as irrelevant, or may be long forgotten by the time actual career choices have to be made (Peterman & Kennedy, 2003). The question posed for this study is then what entrepreneurial outcomes can be achieved with entrepreneurship education among secondary students, and how?

As response to the above question, the European Commission (2015) identified three broad outcomes which are usually triggered by entrepreneurship education, namely, immediate or initial outcome, intermediate outcome and long term outcomes. The immediate outcome is the concern of this study. It refers to the short term influence or effect of an intervention (entrepreneurship education) on                                                                                  learners which is measured in skills, attitude and behaviour. Immediate outcome is usually linked to specific objectives of the intervention. This study determined the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary school students which is assumed to impact their way of life and career development.

Entrepreneurial behaviour is viewed differently by authors. While some see entrepreneurial behaviour as human behaviour involved in identifying and exploiting opportunities (Bird & Schjoedt, 2009), others see it as the assemblage of functions, activities and actions involved in the perception of opportunities and creation of organisations (Mustafa, Murat & Aptug, 2014). Other researchers consider the behaviour as the motive and acts enabling an entrepreneur to reach decisions in their roles as creators of profitable opportunities and as exploiter of those opportunities (Endres& Woods, 2010; Henderson & Palm, 2011). The foregoing suggests that entrepreneurial behaviour is defined by the actions taken by the entrepreneur to create and develop business.

In this study therefore, entrepreneurial behaviour is a set of activities and practices by which entrepreneurship education students generate opportunities and use innovative resources to bring the opportunities into reality. Entrepreneurial behaviour underlies the inclination to undertake invention and innovation, including the creation of something new as well as the adoption and distribution of the new idea throughout society. It is the behaviour most likely exhibited by entrepreneurs. In this study, Students’ behaviour considered entrepreneurial include identifying opportunities, conducting feasibility study, writing business plan and presenting summary of the business plan as business proposal their audience. The class audience represents definite fund providers.

Opportunity in this study refers to the chance to meet a unique need, interest or want through a creative means.  Business opportunity is therefore the projected courses of action to introduce or profit from something new and/or improved supply-demand combinations that seek to address market failure problems. It is a perceived means of generating economic value (profit) that previously has not been exploited and is not currently being exploited by others. If opportunity is defined in this manner, then opportunity recognition can, in turn, be defined as the processes through which individuals conclude that they have identified an opportunity. This study focused on opportunity identification which is an important content area of entrepreneurship education. Ardichvili, Cardozo, and Ray (2003) contend that identifying opportunities especially for new businesses is one of the most important abilities of successful entrepreneurs. If opportunity identification is a unique capability that should be included in the entrepreneurship education content, the question becomes how or what are the pedagogical methods that will increase an individual’s ability to identify opportunities? The opportunity identification literature indicates four methods in which opportunities are identified: active search, passive search, fortuitous discovery, and creation of opportunities. After opportunity has been identified, it is important for entrepreneurship education student determine the feasibility of the opportunity or idea.

A Feasibility Study is the first stage of the opportunity development cycle. Feasibility Study is the process of defining exactly what opportunity or idea is and what strategic issues need to be considered to assess its likelihood of succeeding. It is an important part of developing a successful opportunity for business. It analyses the proposed project, product or service with respect to the expected performance objectives, and may include an evaluation of a current system. It helps one to see if the idea is realistic and profitable. One of the best tools to start with is a SWOT analysis, where one identifies strengths; weaknesses; opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the opportunity. A feasible business venture is one where the business will generate adequate cash-flow and profits, withstand the risks it will encounter, remain viable in the long-term and meet the goals of the founders. A key factor in any feasibility study for secondary students must be ensuring that they are dealing with correct facts, correct assumptions and up to date data since many projects fail because assumptions were based on incorrect facts. Feasibility analysis is a useful guide in preparing business plan, when starting a new business, and identifying a new opportunity for an existing business.

The business plan is a written document which describes all the relevant internal and external elements involved in starting and developing a business. It addresses both short term and long term decision making on key issues such as marketing, finance, products and organisation. Thus, business plan answers the questions Where am I now? Where am I going? How will I get there? Entrepreneurship student should prepare business plan based on feasibility analysis report. The business plan is important to the entrepreneur, potential investor, or even new personnel who are trying to familiarise themselves with the venture, its goals and objectives. The business plan is important because it helps in providing guidance to the entrepreneur in organising his planning activities and as well as a tool for obtaining finance.

Business plans designed for obtaining finance must be presented to the audience to appeal for finance. The audience may consist of family members, friends, donor agencies, investors and business promoters. In the school system, students and teachers may represent the definite audience. The business plan been presented must convince the audience of the designer’s knowledge, commitment and reasons that the financial projections are achievable.  The designer must demonstrate a problem or need, and the audience will want to know how he intends to solve the problem differently from other offerings that address the same issue.

The study of effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students is anchored on two theories: the change theory of entrepreneurship education propounded by the European Commission (2015) and Expended Activity Theory Model propounded by Engestrom (2001). The change theory of entrepreneurship education is based on three assumptions. First, it is assumed that entrepreneurship education has an effect on the individual receiving it in form of learning outcomes (knowledge, skills and attitudes and behaviour). Second, entrepreneurship education is assumed to cause a change in the culture of an educational institution. Third, as a consequence of the entrepreneurial behaviour of the individuals and institutions, societal and economic change is stimulated. The change theory of entrepreneurship education assumes that the quality of input in education is fundamental to the quality of output.

Expended Activity Theory Model (Engestrom, 2001) is based on the assumption that an activity is composed of key components, and each components of an activity contributes in achieving the set objectives. The model uses the whole work activity as a unit of analysis in which activity is broken into analytical components of subject, tool, object, rules and division of labour. Subjects undertake activities using tools to achieve an objective, which is then transformed into a valuable outcome that is guided by rules and division of labour. The entrepreneurship education curriculum is the toolsin the community (secondary school institution). The subject is the student and the object is the purpose of entrepreneurship education which is entrepreneurial behaviour of the student. The rules are sets of teaching principles that help to determine how outcome will be achieved. Division of labour consists of activities of teachers, principals, entrepreneurs and others. These theories are useful tools in design of the study.

But despite the growing attention to entrepreneurship education at secondary education level, there is dearth of information about the result the initiative. Researchers are yet to focus their research activities on the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behavior of secondary students.  This study seeks to close the gap by focusing on the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary student in Rivers State. The study will determine how significantly different students’ entrepreneurial behaviour before and after entrepreneurship education be, and between experimental and control groups.

Statement of the Problem

Educators and policy makers continually search for more effective ways to strengthen education system, engage students during learning as well as to increase students learning output. This led to increase in the number of education institutions and policy reforms across levels of education institutions in Nigeria. Despite the increase in the number of education institutions in Rivers state of Nigeria, the  increasing  rate  of  youth  unemployment  and  frequent collapse  of businesses  among  young entrepreneurs was still a source of worry to the graduates, parents, entrepreneurs, governments and the society at large. More worrisome was the fact that Rivers state labour market was characterized by increasing number of graduates from secondary learning institutions who do not find jobs in the formal sectors. It was further argued that wage employment opportunities in the state were increasing at far lower rates than the rate at which demand for those jobs were growing (Omo-Egbeonu & Kinikanwo, 2014). Research findings attributed this ugly development to lack of entrepreneurial behaviour among secondary students. The behaviour under consideration consist of identifying innovative opportunities, conducting feasibility study, writing  business plan and presenting business plan or proposal for the purpose of raising funds for the business.

With these facts in Rivers and other states, Nigeria government in consultation with stakeholders further integrated entrepreneurship education into secondary education curricula as a means of promoting entrepreneurial behaviour to graduates. Also, Rivers state government declared state of emergency in secondary education in order to enhance effective implementation of the policy. But despite the growing attention to entrepreneurship education at secondary education by Rivers State government, two key issues are observed. Firstly, there is a public outcry that entrepreneurship education seems not to have yielded a positive outcome in the way it is been packaged and delivered to students. Secondly, a systemic view of the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students is lacking. Many researchers rather focused on the roles of entrepreneurship education in job creation (Ehagbonya, 2013; Ekpiken & Ukpobio 2014). A few of the studies which focused on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students were conducted in foreign educational institutions. Though some of the studies indicated positive impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students, three major reasons for the ambiguous results have been observed. Lack of ex-ante/ex-post, control group and smaller sample in some studies can be one of them. The second reason could be in the dimension of the dependent variable and the range of different variants of entrepreneurship education and cultural settings (Reimers, Dyer & Ortega, 2012; Elert, Anderson & Wenberg, 2013). The final reason could be in the use of adult participants as several studies focused on universities in exclusion to secondary education where huge funds have equally been invested. Considering these new insights, more qualitative research is required to fill the wide gaps created in previous studies. Therefore, this study examined effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students in Rivers state of Nigeria.

Purpose of the Study

The main purpose of this study is to examine effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students. Specifically, the study seeks to:

1. Determine the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on opportunity identification.
2. Determine the mean scores difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on conduct of feasibility study.
3. Determine the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on writing business plan.
4. Determine the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on business plan presentation.

Significance of the Study

This study is anchored on the change theory of entrepreneurship education (European Commission, 2015) and Expended Model of Activity Theory (Engestrom, 2001). The change theory of entrepreneurship education assumed that learners achieves higher on entrepreneurial behavior when exposed to appropriate entrepreneurship education programme. The Expended Model of Activity Theory (Engestrom, 2001) demonstrates a wide range of factors work together to impact an activity in order to reach an outcome. Expanded model of activity theory focus on processes where a subject (individual) acquires some identifiable knowledge or skills in such a way that a corresponding, relatively lasting change in the behavior of the subject may be observed. The two theories have been useful tools in the design of entrepreneurship education package and construction of items of instrument of the study.

Practically, the findings of study will benefit Rivers State government, teachers, students, employers of labour, the public and educational planners in various ways.

The findings of this study will be of benefit to Rivers State government. It will create awareness of the effort being made by various public secondary schools on the extent of implementation and outcome of entrepreneurship education which government has great interest.

Teachers who are retrained as entrepreneurship education facilitating agents can apply their experiences in teaching other subjects. For example, the innovative teaching methods and tools which have been experimented during the programme can be of immense benefit to teaching of various subjects such as agriculture, geography and economics.

When the quality of teaching entrepreneurship improves, the students will develop interest in the entrepreneurship education and other subjects. They will be more serious with their academic work and entrepreneurial behavior which will enable them establish small scale business or find wage employment in absence of employment opportunities after graduation.

The employers of labour will also find this study useful. The educational package utilized in this study can serve as training and retraining manual for new and old staff respectively. A well trained staff can contribute to higher productivity of business.

The public will also benefit from findings of this study. When findings of this study are implemented, the public will have more confidence in the quality of public secondary education in the state. This will also save them the cost of retraining their children in technical and vocational centers after receiving secondary education.

Findings of the study will benefit educational planners. The findings will guide National Education and Research Development on the components of entrepreneurship education which should be reviewed in secondary education curricula. It will suggest whether entrepreneurship education should be taught as an optional or core subject.

The study will contribute to knowledge on effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students. This may benefit other researchers in the field of educational administration in Nigeria and beyond.

Research Questions

The following research questions are posed to guide the study:

1. What is the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on opportunity identification;
2. What is the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on conduct of feasibility study;
3. What is the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on writing business plan; and
4. What is the mean score difference between secondary students in the experimental and control group on business plan presentation.

 Research Hypotheses

1. There is no significant difference between the mean score of secondary students in the experimental and control group on opportunity identification.
2. There is no significant difference between the mean score of secondary students in the experimental and control group on conduct of feasibility study.
3. There is no significant difference between the mean score of secondary students in the experimental and control group on writing business plan.
4. There is no significant difference between the mean score of secondary students in the experimental and control group on business plan presentation.

Scope of the Study

The study is limited to secondary school students in River State. Specifically, the study is limited to senior secondary students (II) in Rivers State of Nigeria. Senior secondary students (II) were considered because they were believed to be adequately exposed to senior secondary school curriculum. The study focused on effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial behaviour of secondary students. Components of entrepreneurship education included objectives, methods of teaching and learning, content and evaluation techniques. Meanwhile, the four sub variables of entrepreneurial behaviour consisted of opportunity identification, conduct of feasibility study, writing of business plan and presentation of business plan or proposal to the audience. Private schools were excluded from this study because they are not strictly managed by government educational policies and regulations like public schools.

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