Investigating the role of financial literacy in supporting entrepreneurship skills among high school students

Entrepreneurship is an important skill in the 21st century and is being considered for integration into school programs, as it can help students adapt to a rapidly changing job market. Accordingly, this study aims to profile entrepreneurship skills and financial literacy among high school students and examine their relationship. A total of 434 Grade 10 high school students (M age = 16.04; SD = .85) with 56.27% were female, were selected through cluster random sampling in the North Sulawesi district, Indonesia. Students' entrepreneurship skills were measured using the Entrepreneurship Questionnaire (EntreQ), which consists of 33 items and five latent variables: entrepreneurship interest (6 items), ideas and opportunities (7 items), skills and knowledge (9 items), personal resources (6 items), and entrepreneurship intention (5 items). Financial literacy was assessed using 14 items from the Financial Literacy Awareness (FLA) questionnaire. Additionally, a background questionnaire was included to collect data on students' gender and socioeconomic status (parents' education and income). The validity of the EntreQ and FLA was examined using Rasch analysis showing infit mean square (MNSQ) from .5 to 1.5. Students' entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy were at a medium level (logit values slightly above zero), with no significant gender differences in either domain. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis showed that financial literacy significantly predicted entrepreneurship skills (R 2 = 40.32%, p < .01), whereas gender and socioeconomic status had no significant effect. In conclusion, students with better financial literacy demonstrated higher entrepreneurship skills. Therefore, the integration of financial literacy components into entrepreneurship programs is recommended to better support students’ readiness for entrepreneurship, while also considering gender and socioeconomic status.