PREPARATION FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN HOME ECONOMICS EDUCATION: A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE.

摘要

ntrepreneurship appears to be emerging as a career option in home economics education programs. The purposes in this descriptive study were to determine (1) the 'state of the art' of educating for entrepreneurship in home economics education programs nationwide, and (2) the perceptions of use of and preparation in competencies of home economics education and entrepreneurship by graduates of home economics education who have become entrepreneurs. Questionnaires were mailed to all programs listed in a national directory and to the graduates whose names were supplied by respondents to the teacher educator questionnaire.;Frequencies, paired t -tests, Kendall's Tau, Chi-square, and Cramer's V procedures were used to analyze the data. Of the 150 programs from which responses were obtained, 23 offered courses in entrepreneurship to their students. In addition, 17 percent plan to add such courses within the next four years. More than one-half reported integrating information about entrepreneurship in other courses, such as content area course and occupational home economics. Students from about one-third of the programs participated in entrepreneurship courses offered by the other disciplines on campus. Four-fifths of the programs promoted careers in entrepreneurship to students in other ways, such as in student groups, recruiting, and advising.;Nearly one-half of the teacher educators believed thir home economics education programs did not prepare students at all in 18 entrepreneurial competencies, while about one-fourth believed their students were prepared an average amount or better. For the same competencies, the 109 graudates who are entrepreneurs reported that they used them significantly (p