Innovation, Entrepreneurial Skills and Ethics: The Impact of a Pilot Program on Students in European Union Aged 13 - 15

Abstract

In the European Commission’s policy, entrepreneurship has emerged as the main responsibility of European education and special attention has been given to the development of entrepreneurial skills, such as critical and creative thinking, problem solving, decision making, innovation, risk-taking, etc. The purpose of this study is to present the impact of “ETHICSBOARD”, a 6-month pilot training course, designed in 2019 to teach entrepreneurial concepts accompanied with ethical practices, to school students aged 13 - 15 in Greece, Spain and Portugal. The training curriculum and learning materials were developed on six basic areas (personal empowerment, critical and creative thinking, effective decision making and problem solving, entrepreneurship and vocational training, Project-Based Learning and school-family-community partnerships), which were based on innovative, learner-centered pedagogical approaches and creative techniques. Specifically, one hundred and eighteen (118) students completed a questionnaire, developed by the researchers, before and after the implementation of the pilot course, in order to identify any changes in their knowledge, skills and attitudes towards ethics and entrepreneurship. The results showed that in the post-measure, compared to the pre-measure, the students showed higher mean values in many of the variables examined. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored.