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.
