Design, implementation and evaluation of an entrepreneurship curriculum in primary school

Entrepreneurship is one of the skills that has been increasing in importance in recent years and is also shown among 21st century skills. As a matter of fact, societies where entrepreneurial activities are common are seen to be more developed in many fields such as economy and technology. In this respect, in order to be a developed society, it is necessary to raise awareness about entrepreneurship and to grow entrepreneurial individuals. To achieve this, there is a need for entrepreneurship trainings aimed at gaining students' entrepreneurship skills effectively in all education levels, especially starting from primary school. In this study, it was aimed to design, implement and evaluate an entrepreneurship curriculum for the development of entrepreneurship skills of primary school fourth grade students. In the research, the embedded design, which is a kind of mixed research methods designs, was used. The research group, in the actual implementation process of the program, it consisted of 34 experimental groups, 33 control group students, who studied at 4th grade in Istanbul Sultanbeyli Nene Hatun Primary School in 2018-2019 academic year, 21 parents, 1 practitioner and 1 observer. "Entrepreneurship Skill Test (EST), Entrepreneurship Skills Inventory for Children (ETIC), Entrepreneurship Skills Assessment Scale for Secondary School Students, Self-Efficacy Scale for Children, practitioner and student diaries, course observation form, end-of-module evaluation activities, student interview form and parent opinions survey were used as data collection tools. In the research, firstly, needs analysis studies were conducted based on the literature review, the opinions of 12 faculty members and 84 classroom teachers. As a result, an entrepreneurship curriculum consisting of seven modules was designed. In this process, two measuring tools (EST, ETIC) were developed. After, the program was piloted, evaluated and 11 weeks of actual implementation was carried out. Quantitative data collection tools were applied before and after the application. During the implementation process, diaries were written by the practitioner and students, observations were made and end-of-module evaluation activities were implemented. After the application, the opinions of students and parents were taken and the effectiveness of the program was tried to be determined. According to the quantitative findings; it was concluded that the entrepreneurship curriculum developed significantly improved students' entrepreneurship success, tendencies, skills and self-efficacy beliefs. Qualitative findings also showed that the program was largely carried out in accordance with the purpose and that the students achieved the targeted achievements at a sufficient level. As a result, it was understood that education activities should be started from primary school in order to gain entrepreneurship skills to students.