Developing Business Skills in High School Students Using Project Activities

Abstract

Abstract: The most important requirement for today’s general education is the development of a personality with well-developed business skills. The research aims to experimentally verify the methodology for developing business skills in high school students using project activities. The number of group participants is as follows: 225 high school students aged between 14 and 17 in experimental and control group. The following forms and methods were used: reading biographies of prominent businessmen from all over the world; role-playing situations; meetings with people who have succeeded in economic, entrepreneurial, pedagogical and other fields; visits to companies, enterprises, cultural and scientific institutions; certain business games (“How can one live within one’s means?”, “Starting a business”, “Business communication”, “Manager’s working week”), conversations on such topics as “Is it difficult to be a businessman?”, “How can one succeed in learning?”, “Tell me about myself”; the “this is my opinion” student platform.The following diagnostic methods were used: the method called “Determining a self-focus”; the method called “Striving for achievements”; questionnaires about creativity; the communication and organization skills methodology; methods for studying the level of subjective locus of control; methods for identifying risk preparedness; the scale of reactive (situational) and personal anxiety; the tolerance index questionnaire. The number of high school students with a high level of business skills has increased by 12.8% in EG and only by 1.3 in CG. The comparison of the results proves the effectiveness of the proposed methodology for developing business skills in high school students using project activities.