In a nutshell
This seminal study helped move entrepreneurship education from assumption to evidence, showing that well-designed enterprise programmes can shift how high school students perceive the feasibility and desirability of starting a business.
What makes a young student believe that starting a business is something they could actually do? Is it having entrepreneurial parents? Watching a friend launch a side hustle? Or can it be something more structured — like a school programme designed to make entrepreneurship feel both exciting and achievable?
These were the kinds of questions Peterman and Kennedy explored in their 2003 study, which has since become a foundational piece in entrepreneurship education research. At the time, enterprise education was gaining traction, but solid evidence of its impact was still thin. Most studies focused on university students, leaned heavily on anecdotal feedback, and rarely used rigorous methods, but this study helped change that.
The researchers looked specifically at high school students enrolled in the Young Achievement Australia (YAA) programme, an experiential course where students form real businesses with the guidance of industry mentors. Their goal was to understand how participation in YAA influenced students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship — particularly how desirable and feasible they found the idea of starting a business. These concepts, drawn from Shapero’s entrepreneurial event model, help explain how entrepreneurial intentions are formed: not just whether someone wants to start a business, but whether they believe they can.
Publication Date: March 2003
Authors: Nicole E. Peterman and Jessica Kennedy
Institutions: Central Queensland University
Study Type: Empirical study with a quasi-experimental design
Sample Size: 236 high school students (117 in the treatment group, 119 in the control group)
Research Focus: Investigating how participation in a structured enterprise education programme (Young Achievement Australia) affects high school students’ perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of starting a business.
Research Methodology: Pre-test/post-test control group design using quantitative surveys based on Shapero’s model of entrepreneurial intent. Students were surveyed before and after a five-month programme to assess changes in entrepreneurial attitudes.
Main Findings: Students who participated in the programme reported significantly increased perceptions of both the desirability and feasibility of starting a business. The effect was especially strong for students with little or negative prior exposure to entrepreneurship. The study highlights the role of experiential learning in building entrepreneurial confidence and supports the inclusion of enterprise education as a variable in models of entrepreneurial intention.
Citation: Peterman, N. E., & Kennedy, J. (2003). Enterprise Education: Influencing Students’ Perceptions of Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 28(2), 129-144. Link
To explore this, Peterman and Kennedy used a pre-test/post-test control group design, surveying 117 students who participated in YAA and a comparison group of 119 students who didn’t. Over the course of five months, they tracked changes in students’ perceptions using well-validated measures.
The results were striking: YAA participants showed a significant increase in both desirability and feasibility, while the control group stayed the same — or declined slightly. Interestingly, the biggest improvements came from students who had limited or even negative prior exposure to entrepreneurship. In other words, the programme didn’t just reinforce what students already believed; it helped shift the mindset of those who may never have seen entrepreneurship as an option.
The authors link these findings to self-efficacy theory, suggesting that as students gained hands-on experience and saw real results, their confidence in their own entrepreneurial abilities grew. They didn’t just learn about entrepreneurship — they began to see themselves as capable of doing it.
What makes this study especially important is its combination of empirical rigour and practical relevance. It not only provided clear evidence that enterprise education can shift attitudes, but also highlighted the value of introducing these programmes earlier in the education system, and of designing them around real-world experience — not just classroom theory.
Two decades later, this paper still holds up. It marked a shift in the field from assumption to evidence, from intention to impact. And it offered something that’s just as valuable now as it was then: a reminder that the right kind of education can change not just what students know, but what they believe they’re capable of.
For a related perspective on confidence and resilience in entrepreneurship training, see our recap on Maintaining Confidence in the Face of Realistic Challenges.
