Participation in a National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship program: The impact on high school students' knowledge of entrepreneurship and evaluation of the learning experience

This longitudinal research study examined the effectiveness of an entrepreneurship curriculum created by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) that was used in a southern New Jersey urban high school. The study was designed to assess how the NFTE entrepreneurship education course influenced participating students' basic knowledge of entrepreneurial concepts and attitudes toward entrepreneurship education. The t-test for dependent samples revealed a statistically significant difference between students' pre-course and post-course knowledge of entrepreneurial concepts. Despite the statistically significant improvement in knowledge of entrepreneurial concepts, students' post-course assessment scores indicated they understood only about two-thirds of the content taught during the course. An analysis of variance using the demographic variables and prior learning indicators as independent variables and post-course knowledge scores as the dependent variable showed none of these independent variables explained differences in post-course knowledge of entrepreneurial concepts. A multiple regression analysis indicated the basic knowledge pretest explained significantly more of the variance in the posttest knowledge scores than any of the other independent variables used in the study. Key findings that emerged from the post-course evaluation survey indicated most students 90% liked the course and were still interested in opening their own business at the completion of the course (88%). Implications of the findings are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.