Fostering business opportunity identification skills in secondary education via an orchestrated technology enhanced learning script

Abstract

Due to global economic and technological changes, Europe requires a greater number of young people who are willing and able to become entrepreneurs. Thus, there is a need for the provision of effective Entrepreneurship Education (EE) in high schools via validated well-structured instructional methods. Although business opportunity identification has been regarded as the starting learning objective for every educational approach on entrepreneurship, so far not great emphasis has been given on it within EE programs. This paper proposes a technologically enhanced instructional approach that specifically promotes high school students’ business opportunity identification skills, focusing on their entrepreneurial readiness and providing them with the opportunity to fill cognitive gaps using digital learning material in an online learning environment. This approach has been validated via a research study which was conducted in seven high school classes involving 168 students aged 14–16 years, examining its learning effectiveness and acceptability. The evaluation framework along with the positive quantitative and qualitative results is presented.