Innovation-entrepreneurial readiness of pupils in 8th grade of primary school

The master's thesis researched the innovation-entrepreneurial readiness of pupils in the 8th grade of elementary school. In the theoretical part of the master's thesis we studied concepts such as creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship and related them with the development of the economy in society. We pointed out that entrepreneurship is not in the regular form of a curriculum in elementary school. We used the quantitative approach of empirical experimental pedagogical research for the empirical part. The study included students from three elementary schools who attended the 8th grade in the year 2017/18. Students solved the non-standardized questionnaire entitled Questionnaire for the 8th grade of primary school and standardized test of drawing  Creative Engineering Design Assessment (CEDA). Based on the findings, we evaluated the students' attitude to entrepreneurship and their state of creativity and innovation. We also tried to determine how ready they are for the changes and what their wishes are for the form of work and the implementation of innovation-entrepreneurial education. The results of the study showed minor differences between boys and girls in relation to their own creativity, where the size of the gender effect was weak (η2 = 0,022). We can conclude that girls are better acquainted with the definition of creativity, as well as they know more creative techniques, they are more aware of creativity and use it as their advantage. For the remaining categories such as the innovation process, adaptability to product changes and products marketing no statistically significant differences between the genders (α > 0.05) were observed. Girls are expected to be more successful in creative design, which was shown in points of the test CEDA, where the average score for boys is 76,25 points and 87,34 points for girls. The study provided a statistically significant effect (α 0,496) were found. It is also not possible to perceive the influence of the environment on student's adaptability to change, even though pupils who attend or attended business activities or similar lessons (weight β = -0,204) are considered to be less adaptable to changes than those who did not attend them. More adaptable to changes are those who are thinking about a profession in the field of economics and entrepreneurship (weight β = 0,219) and those who have siblings who have professional entrepreneurial experience or are learning it at school. However, the link between the home environment for developing innovation and creativity is small. Students want the most for the education with the content of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation to be held within the framework of the optional subject, and they want the least for this to be a paid entrepreneurial workshop or additional content in the remaining subjects. Students estimated that current work in the classroom of Technique and technology classes does often not take place in groups and that there is a competition among individuals, which is good for entrepreneurial education, since entrepreneurship must be competitive and team work in order to achieve good results. Most often boys and girls who want to implement their idea are helped by a close family (parents, brothers, sisters ...), friends and classmates and relatives. We found that boys and girls are in some extent prepared for the changes, but it will also be necessary to make some changes with teachers and their choice of teaching methods and lessons organizing. It would also be sensible to first educate teachers before introducing entrepreneurial education in elementary schools.