Behavioral Criteria for Grounding Entrepreneurship Education and Training Programs: A Validation Study

The entrepreneurship literature lacks a systematically developed and validated framework to ground educational programs. We previously developed behavioral observation scales (BOS) consisting of 9 dimensions and 47 behaviors. In this study, we validated the BOS using 12 performance measures and a national survey of 149 entrepreneurs. The BOS were found to be valid. All 9 BOS dimensions, as well as the total score on the BOS, correlated significantly with many of the 12 nonbehavioral performance measures. These BOS provide entrepreneurship education and educators with a validated and systematically developed instrument that can be used to appropriately ground education programs.