Utilisation of a Delphi study to understand effective entrepreneurship education in schools

Research into how teachers and leaders successfully implement effective entrepreneurship education is vital to developing student’s entrepreneurial mindsets to navigate opportunities in a post-COVID environment. Identifying professional practice that supports the effective implementation of an engaging entrepreneurial curriculum in schools is critical to the success of programmes. Recent studies have rarely consulted stakeholders, school leaders, or entrepreneurs in determining the characteristics for entrepreneurship education. This study describes the investigation of the literature on the contemporary methodologies of entrepreneurial education research and proposes the use of Delphi techniques to harness the collective knowledge of experts to efficiently define current key indicators of effective entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools. We justify the rationale for a Delphi study because, in such unstable economic times across the globe, establishing a localised and contemporary entrepreneurship research framework will support the interrogation and identification of effective school programmes.

vaccination response plans to COVID-19 (OECD 2021), it is pertinent that primary and secondary schools instil entrepreneurial capabilities such as adaptability and resilience (OECD 2020), creativity, collaborative skills (Norberg 2017), and a future focus (Samuel and Rahman 2018) in students towards their learning and decision making (Lackéus 2020;Maritz et al. 2020). However, many school educators require more knowledge about how to effectively implement entrepreneurship education (Norberg 2017;Smith et al. 2017) or more support from leadership (Birdthistle et al. 2016;Hocenski et al. 2019). These educators need to learn from teachers and leaders who have successfully supported entrepreneurship education to build confidence, knowledge, and capacity in their approach (Hardie et al. 2020).
In a previous study by the current authors (Hardie et al. 2022), entrepreneurship education was shown to be enabled within school settings when there was consensus between teachers on the implementation methods (Elo 2016), support from leadership (Lee et al. 2015), an entrepreneurial school culture (Kirkley 2017), principals and teachers trained in the approach (Peltonen 2015;Ruskovaara et al. 2016), where it was prioritised (Hämäläinen et al. 2018), and when it involved teacher networking (Neto et al. 2018). An inconsistent range of associated definitions and teaching methods meant there was no shared common understanding to use as a basis for comparison (Fejes et al. 2019;Hardie et al. 2022). Entrepreneurship itself requires rapid adaptation and opportunity recognition within dynamic social issues (Smith and Woods 2015), economic markets (Otago 2018), and environmental issues (Rieckmann 2020)-therefore, pinpointing characteristics of entrepreneurship education may quickly become outdated (Gössling et al. 2020) or irrelevant to different geographical regions and contexts (DeJaeghere 2013).
This paper outlines a three-step literature review that formed the rationale for utilising a Delphi method to understand how to implement effective entrepreneurship in schools. The initial investigation into the characteristics of entrepreneurship education was followed by a second review to understand the methodology that had been utilised in the research into the implementation of entrepreneurship education. This information provided the basis of the final inquiry into the suitability of a Delphi method to determine relevant and current characteristics of effective entrepreneurship schools. The following three questions guided the investigation: Research Question 1. What are the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools? Research Question 2. What research methods have previously been employed to study the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools? Research Question 3. How can a Delphi study be designed to determine local characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools?

Interpretations of 'entrepreneurship education'
Defining entrepreneurship education for primary and secondary schools has proven problematic, and as a result, an extensive range of various teaching and learning approaches exists. The OECD and European Commission (2020) rationalised the variation in definitions of entrepreneurship education as symptomatic of the differences in the strategies implemented across countries. Comprehensive strategies are in place in countries such as Finland and Sweden, while broader strategies are common in other European countries (Scotland and Austria), and yet, in other European countries, there are isolated single programmes, such as those in the Czech Republic and England (OECD European Commission 2020). Singapore promotes entrepreneurship education at all levels of education (OECD 2018), and in Malaysia, programmes and policies for entrepreneurship have shifted away from isolated single programmes or extracurricular programmes to a broader approach (Othman et al. 2012). Other countries also developing curricula to promote entrepreneurship in primary and secondary schools include Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand (OECD 2018). All secondary schools in China are required to provide a minimum of two courses in entrepreneurship education with vocational secondary schools tending to provide more courses than academic schools (Ni and Ye 2018). In addition to the curriculum format for entrepreneurship education, the effectiveness of programmes in preparing students to be successful in their futures are also influenced by local social and economic conditions for entrepreneurship.
Attitudes and values held by governments towards entrepreneurship were found to vary across countries (Bosma et al. 2021) and influence the levels of occurrence (Bosma et al. 2021) of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools. Government policy in some jurisdictions has been developed to support entrepreneurship as a strategy to improve the economy (OECD 2018). However, in a report by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on stimulating competitiveness and economic growth, countries with middle-to-low-income economies were encouraged to establish a strong, small and medium enterprise (SME) economy for mainstream educational policies (e.g., literacy and numeracy) before enhancing entrepreneurship (OECD 2018). Similarly, communities from South African regions with unemployment challenges valued preparing students for employment with job security more than entrepreneurship education in secondary schools (Swart and Pretorius 2018). In the United States, which has a higher SME economy, entrepreneurship education strategies were common practice in primary and secondary schools, with teaching methods that ranged from a focus on developing entrepreneurial competencies to teaching how to create business ventures (Liguori et al. 2018).

Approaches to entrepreneurship education
Different approaches can also hinge on what is perceived as the most effective method to teach students to be entrepreneurial. Research reveals that in some countries, entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools has been approached with a narrow view that requires students to learn about being prepared for business, by being taught knowledge and understanding of how to acquire capital, develop business plans and marketing strategies, and manage resources (Lackéus 2015;Osiri et al. 2015). Other approaches take a broader view, where students learn through problem solving or value creation for ventures or designs that meet opportunities across subjects, the surrounding community or in society (Osiri et al. 2015;Kirkley 2017). Education debate has centred around designing effective entrepreneurship education experiences and considering the extent to which students should learn about, for, or through entrepreneurship (Hannon 2005). Students can learn about entrepreneurship with instruction on theories to develop knowledge (Lackéus 2015), for entrepreneurship in business (Caird 1990;Moberg 2014) with teacher guidance in practical training (Sirelkhatim and Gangi 2015; Elahi 2019), or through entrepreneurship with experiences in creating ventures (Piperopoulos and Dimov 2015) to develop skills and competencies (Moberg 2014;Lackéus 2015).

Entrepreneurship education at a local level
Due to the diverse range of understandings about the nature and delivery of entrepreneurship education, it is difficult to determine what is common and effective practice within different school contexts. We argue that a clear understanding of what effective entrepreneurship education entails in schools is likely to be informed by local stakeholders: school leaders, teachers, entrepreneurs, and leaders of entrepreneurial programmes, who can reinforce and further enrich relevant pedagogy for a given economy (Gibb and Ramsey 2011;Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2012;Kirkley 2017) because jurisdictions vary in their interpretations of entrepreneurship and rate of activity (Bosma et al. 2021). Local knowledge provides insight into relevant council rules and laws, processes, and tools, as well as opportunities for growth and innovation in the community (Lackéus 2015;Ruskovaara et al. 2015) and viability of global trends that enable entrepreneurship to thrive (Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2012).
Definitions of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools may be developed with consultation in pre-established models such as the 'Measurement Tool for Entrepreneurship Education' which was developed with Finnish teachers (Ruskovaara 2014). However pre-established models have a limited shelflife whereby their relevance may be applied only to a specific time and context. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how previous approaches to education, social issues, and economics can quickly lose relevance when there is an onslaught of new challenges in times of crisis (OECD 2020). Emerging arguments, such as the relevance of online learning, have been thrust into the spotlight as indispensable and these types of shifts in the way we choose to live and work will inevitably impact our understanding and experiences of entrepreneurial education (Tesar 2020).
Consultation with local stakeholders on the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools that may be researched enables upto-date intelligence to inform teachers' thinking within the context of a dynamic, local, economic, political, and social landscape for entrepreneurship. Collaboration with stakeholders to gain shared meaning in research is common practice in many other disciplines such as healthcare (Boutari et al. 2021;Erismann et al. 2021), environmental sustainability (Journeault et al. 2021), and business (Harlin et al. 2021;Thamchaisophis 2021).

A Delphi to refine diverse definitions
A shared understanding of the characteristics of an effective entrepreneurship education is required before an analysis of its implementation, given definitions have been so vast and the landscape for entrepreneurship is dynamic and context specific. A Delphi is an efficient method for establishing shared understandings across a range of stakeholders (Irdayanti et al. 2015). The Delphi method brings expert opinions together in anonymous, successive rounds in order to seek consensus on defining a complex issue when there is a lack of information (Irdayanti et al. 2015;Charro 2020) or when it is "multidisciplinary in nature" (Bulger and Housner 2007, p. 59). Although the concept of a collective perspective was first developed for the military by Norman Dalkey and Olaf Helmer, in 1953, to estimate the effects of an atomic bomb on the United States (Boberg and Monis-Khoo 1992;Linstone and Turoff 2002;Irdayanti et al. 2015), studies now also include research into healthcare (Trevelyan and Robinson 2015), education (Ruppert and Duncan 2017), economics (Bernal et al. 2019), and business (White 2017). Delphi methodology has been used around the globe in countries such as England (Hatt 2018 The procedure for initiating a Delphi study includes establishing the criteria for choosing an expert, the sample size of experts, the number of rounds in which the experts are approached, and how the rounds are conducted and analysed (Irdayanti et al. 2015;Linstone and Turoff 2002;McIntyre-Hite 2016). A Delphi study requires the researcher to select experts of the highest quality (Irdayanti et al. 2015;Charro 2020), present findings accurately to experts from previous rounds (Boberg and Monis-Khoo 1992;Green 2014), and aim to use the optimal number of questions and rounds to reach agreement before the onset of participant fatigue (Hatt 2018).
Initiating a research project to explore understandings of contemporary entrepreneurship education with the Delphi method allowed the researchers to acknowledge the fluidity of entrepreneurship and establish, through consultation with experts, effective characteristics to inform further study in the field. Selected experts included experienced entrepreneurs who had successfully navigated the dynamic and constantly changing market, effective school principals with an interest in entrepreneurship, government officials in education, leaders in entrepreneurship support programmes, and academic researchers who have recent publications in entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship education (Tang et al. 2016). These types of experts were selected in order for them to inform and share their knowledge about authentic entrepreneurship, school ecosystems, educational theory, curricula design, and programme management. The Delphi methodology allowed them to develop consensus on the characteristics of effective entrepreneurship education.

Method
A three-step literature review was conducted in an exploratory sequence with each literature review informing the purpose of the next (Fig. 1).

Literature review of characteristics of entrepreneurship education
The first literature review was conducted to identify what have been considered the determining characteristics of effective entrepreneurship education using the keywords 'entrepreneurship education,' 'enterprise education ' and 'teaching,' 'school,' 'primary,' 'secondary,' 'teacher,' 'leader,' and 'principal.' Articles that contained multiple characteristics of entrepreneurship education were included. An interpretative approach was used to synthesise similar characteristics in the literature through thematic analysis, as outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). Further research was needed to refine the range of characteristics found to ensure they were relevant to local primary and secondary schools currently implementing entrepreneurship education effectively.

Literature review of entrepreneurship education implementation
The second literature review investigated the implementation of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools, and findings were organised and prioritised to identify the most common research strategies employed. Some studies utilised multiple methods so each method type was tallied for each individual study, in order to understand which methods researchers were inclined to use in their research design.

Literature review of Delphi studies
The third literature review was conducted to understand the extent and benefits of the utilisation of Delphi methodology to investigate context-specific characteristics of entrepreneurship education. A search was conducted using the Google Scholar search engine, and the library database of the University of Auckland, using the Step 1

• LITERATURE REVIEW • Identify characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools
Step 2

• LITERATURE REVIEW • Identify research methods previously employed to study the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools
Step 3 • LITERATURE REVIEW • Investigate how and why educational researchers have designed Delphi studies Fig. 1 Overview of the initial literature review on entrepreneurship education keywords 'Delphi' and 'entrepreneurship,' 'entrepreneurship education,' or 'education.' Articles between 2010 and 2021 that outlined the Delphi study design were included. Studies on Delphi procedure designs were reviewed to understand the benefits of utilising the Delphi method. Peer-reviewed articles excluded in the initial search, because they weren't empirical studies with procedural designs, were nevertheless stored because they provided a broader discussion of the Delphi technique and so were included (Boberg and Monis-Khoo 1992;Irdayanti et al. 2015;Puig and Adams 2018).
Each article was scanned for statements about the benefits of using a Delphi study, which were then inserted into a table alongside a reference to the article. Similar methodological ideas were colour-coded across articles. In a second table, the statements on the benefits of a Delphi study were identified according to the colourcoded themes that emerged, in order to further consolidate ideas.

Characteristics of entrepreneurship education
The first literature review into the characteristics of entrepreneurship education found 25 characteristics across 17 publications (see Table 1). While some characteristics were generic, others were more specific, and the extent to which certain characteristics were deemed essential varied, depending on the country and focus of the study.
The number of characteristics used to define entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools ranged from 8 to 24 items. All articles (n = 17) included the need to foster entrepreneurship knowledge, capabilities and skills. Most articles (n = 14) included parent, business and community engagement as essential. Students make decision about learning was also listed as an element of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools by most articles (n = 13). Ten out of the 17 articles listed a cross-curricular approach as essential to entrepreneurship education. The three articles from New Zealand included taking a broader cross-curriculum approach rather than business activities. Seven international articles (Gibb 1987;Leffler 2009;McLarty et al. 2010;Draycott and Rae 2011;Gibb and Price 2014;Ruskovaara et al. 2016;Jůvová et al. 2017) embraced both a cross-curricular approach and the inclusion of business activities with 13 out of 17 articles listing business activities as essential.
Characteristics less frequently identified as elements of entrepreneurship education in schools, across articles in the review, were innovative leadership, recognised in eight articles; and leading professional development in entrepreneurship education. Collaborative support, mentoring by leaders, and change management, were each recognised in five articles. 'Innovative leadership' was a broader term that could also incapsulate the finer elements of collaborative support, mentoring by leaders, and change management. The two articles that stated all three leadership characteristics also used the most characteristics (n = 24) to articulate entrepreneurship education. While some definitions and characteristics of entrepreneurship education in schools were shared across studies and countries in the literature review, the wide range of definitions and characteristics found highlighted the importance of leaders and teachers having a sound understanding of what is, and should be, occurring at a local level before carrying out further research. Therefore, the authors sought a deeper understanding of what methods researchers have employed to first establish characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools and then gather evidence of school practice.

Studies of entrepreneurship education
More than 35 articles across 18 countries, written in English, were reviewed with half of these studies (n = 18) focused on benefits to primary and secondary school teachers and students. Entrepreneurship education in schools in most countries was represented by only one or two studies. Three articles were found from the United Kingdom; however, there were six articles from Sweden and seven from Finland. Both Malaysia (Pihie and Bagheri 2011), which had two studies, and Finland (Seikkula-Leino 2011), which had seven studies, reported government commitment to support school-based initiatives along with school curriculum reform that had supported the implementation of entrepreneurship education.
The most common method used by researchers to define the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools was a literature review (25), with some studies also referring to the local curriculum (5), a pre-established model (4), or stakeholders (2). Just under a third of studies used a pre-established model alone (10) to define the characteristics of entrepreneurship education. A collaborative approach to ensuring entrepreneurship education in schools was defined by a range of local stakeholders within a study was employed in only three out of the 35 studies (McLarty et al. 2010;Ruskovaara and Pihkala 2015;Ho et al. 2018). One of these studies (Ho et al. 2018) described a context where entrepreneurial training was provided for teachers, and a curriculum was implemented with contribution from local entrepreneurs who shared their experiences and provided students with mentoring and authentic learning experiences. A second study, in England, by McLarty et al. (2010), interviewed stakeholders to provide a framework for evaluating good entrepreneurship education practice prior to the implementation of a review for the Department of Education in English schools.
Surveys comprised the most common form of data-gathering technique to be included in research design-21 out of the 35 studies (60%) utilised this technique (Table 2). Researchers generally preferred using surveys when working with primary and secondary school students, with data being collected via student surveys in 13 out of the 18 studies which gathered student data. Over the 21 studies that used surveys, 62% included a focus on students as their participants. Surveys are popular as they can be used to investigate a wide range of topics, are logistically efficient, and the findings are generalisable (Check and Schutt 1947). Surveys may have been preferred when research was focused on primary or secondary school students because of the time and complexity when working with children, and their rate of metacognitive development (Schraw and Graham 1997), and to capture student voice across a larger student population compared to the number of teachers and the principal.
However, interviews were preferred when working with teachers in primary and secondary schools. Of the 20 studies which gathered data from teachers, 14 (70%) employed interviews (Table 2). Interviews allow participants to share how they make sense of their experiences, interactions with others, and social structures, and allow the researcher to further explore a response (Cohen et al. 2011). Interviews may have also been selected frequently as a suitable data-gathering method as they can provide deeper insights into the experiences that have enabled entrepreneurship education in schools, compared with other methods (such as surveys, observations or document analysis).
Leaders emerged as an under-researched source of information as they are critical in their influence on school policies (Lee et al. 2015;Ruskovaara et al. 2016), provide mentoring (Lindner 2019), foster school culture (Kirkley 2017), and influence whether entrepreneurship education is prioritised with support and resource allocation (Birdthistle et al. 2016;Neto et al. 2017). Teachers were interviewed over three times more often than school leaders regarding the implementation of entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools, which reflects the ratio of principals to teachers in a given population. However, principals were interviewed in only five of the 35 studies (as shown in Table 2). Interviews with principals would be very beneficial as principals are key to understanding how effective entrepreneurship education is enabled and the barriers to success. Effective primary and secondary school leaders provide teachers with professional development, create a collaborative culture (Hattie 2015), motivate and influence teachers' efficacy for creating change (Donohoo et al. 2018), and network with local entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship support programmes (Lee et al. 2015).
The first two literature reviews found the characteristics of entrepreneurship education that were prioritised as locally relevant, in primary and secondary schools, required exploration of the experiences of leaders and teachers who had implemented the pedagogy in schools. In a discussion between the authors, a Delphi study was proposed and a third review, of the method, was employed.

Previous Delphi studies in education and entrepreneurship education
The literature review found 18 articles on Delphi studies in education and entrepreneurship education within the search criteria, as shown in Table 3.
Articles were accessed across seven countries with most studies (8) found in the United States. A Delphi study was rarely used in relation to entrepreneurship education (only five studies were found); one study was on entrepreneurship, while most studies (12) related to other education topics. Three of the five Delphi studies on entrepreneurship education related to higher education and two were generalised to both school and higher education. Tang et al. (2016) sought to clarify the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in public school and higher education within a socioecological systems framework through consulting experts using a Delphi study. The study found that the effectiveness of the development of entrepreneurship education was influenced by resources, environmental factors, organisational structure, leadership, entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and intent.
Each article stipulated the Delphi procedural design and the inclusive criteria for experts, sample size, number of rounds, how rounds were to be conducted, and how the data collected were to be analysed. Experts were most commonly academic staff (13) for education topics. Across the articles reviewed, 11 studies utilised one specific type of expert and seven studies involved the participation of a variety of experts. In most of the reviewed studies, the number of experts participating varied from 10 to 30, with a third of studies losing participants in the second round. Delphi studies commonly went for two rounds (7) or three rounds (9) with only one study continuing to four rounds. Most of the research designs (15) involved a Likert-scale survey with tallied responses or further statistical analysis (10) (as shown in Table 3).
Although most studies in the review had a small participant group, this can still provide a minimum standard of validity, according to Irdayanti et al. (2015) and McIntyre-Hite (2016), as long as there are at least 10 participants in a Delphi. An excess of 50 expert participants would compromise the quality of correspondence and require more rigorous analysis of the qualitative aspects such as participant comments. According to Bray et al. (2012), a Delphi should not exceed 20 expert participants to ensure quality and involve a diverse group.

The benefits of a Delphi study
The benefits of the Delphi method were discussed in 15 of the 18 studies reviewed for procedural designs and in the additional three broader articles on the Delphi method (Boberg and Monis-Khoo 1992;Irdayanti et al. 2015;Puig and Adams  2018). There were seven benefits to the Delphi method found across 18 of the 21 studies (as shown in Fig. 2). All of the studies referred to forming consensus between individuals with relevant areas of expertise as a benefit of the Delphi, and some studies (5) stated that collective decision making was more effective than individual. Experts with different backgrounds provide unique perspectives that can clarify and enrich the development of the topic for consideration in the Delphi (Kloser 2014).
Experts can hold leadership status in different spaces; therefore, the benefit of anonymity, without the influence of social pressure and perceived social status associated with group dynamics, was mentioned in most of the articles (13). The quality in responses can also be improved by the systematic and repeated rounds of a Delphi. As Neck and Corbett (2018) explained, experts should be given repeated opportunities to provide feedback and clarify their ideas on the study topic.
The ability of a Delphi to define a complex issue was another benefit woven throughout the articles analysed. A Delphi was described as useful to clarify topics that are under-researched (Hanson 2020) or controversial, to develop curriculum aims (Ruppert and Duncan 2017), build frameworks (Bray et al. 2012), develop theories and inform policy decisions (Puig and Adams 2018), review characteristics (Anderson 2010), identify research, or forecast future outcomes (Irdayanti et al. 2015).
The logistics of collaboration between experts are greatly improved by technology in modern Delphi methods (Kavoura and Andersson 2016), which makes it a time-efficient tool in a COVID-isolated world for capturing the variety of expert perspectives on entrepreneurship education. As Boberg and Monis-Khoo (1992) explained nearly 30 years ago, a benefit of a Delphi is that experts can be sourced from a wide range of remote places to provide responses that contribute to the collective decision.
Researchers have fewer participants to manage when they employ a Delphi method, and can utilise a notably small group of interested experts without compromising results; some studies (4) recommended little more than 10 participants. The small set of participants needed in a Delphi to obtain a robust set of effective characteristics of entrepreneurship education (Neck and Corbett 2018), contrasts with the resources required to conduct large quantitative studies such as the study by Ruskovaara and Pihkala (2015) who surveyed 1359 teachers to find out which teaching methods are used in entrepreneurship education.
Another benefit of a Delphi is that the method can be altered to suit the type of experts or the scope of the study (Irdayanti et al. 2015). In the literature review, it emerged that researchers began the Delphi by gathering expert opinion on characteristics of a topic through qualitative methods, such as interviews (4) or longanswer questions in surveys (9); or presented a list of characteristics to rate (15) for a more time-efficient quantitative survey review; or utilised both in a mixed methods research approach (14).
In order for the Delphi method to be effective, the reviewed articles recommended experts be of the highest quality in their field (3) and understand the aim of the inquiry (4). The researcher must be careful how they present the data to the experts so that they do not influence the outcome (Fogo 2014). Participant recruitment,     (Irdayanti et al. 2015); therefore, researchers should be mindful that large panels of experts are not necessary (Kloser 2014) and not generalise findings beyond the scope of the study (Puig and Adams 2018). Smaller groups also ensure correspondence is well maintained (Kloser 2014;Irdayanti et al. 2015).

Overview of the literature review study
The three-step literature review sought to investigate research methods that would enable more advanced understandings of effective entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools both in New Zealand and internationally. By gathering an understanding of the characteristics used to indicate effective practice, the research methods employed were able to capture school implementation strategies, and signal the beneficial attributes of a Delphi study to refine research into effective practice for dissemination (Table 4). The first literature review found researchers had used both a broad and narrow range of 25 characteristics to define entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools. A selection of these characteristics required clarification regarding their effectiveness for a specific location or context. The second review found researchers often reused characteristics from previous studies without input from stakeholders. This research also tended to target participation from students and teachers with few studies investigating the importance of the views of those working in leadership roles. The third literature review highlighted the ability of the Delphi to define a complex issue and highlighted this methodology as a much-needed tool to determine current context-specific characteristics for research of effective entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools.

Surveying the state of entrepreneurship education
Entrepreneurship education that is connected to current and forecasted conditions for entrepreneurship beyond school is essential in preparing students to pursue passions and career pathways. Leaders and teachers require knowledge of innovations to curriculum and practice that successfully develop entrepreneurial students. Just as the unpredictable landscape for entrepreneurship is navigated by successful entrepreneurs (Haeffele et al. 2020;Maritz et al. 2020), entrepreneurship education researchers require the same agility to change focus and harness knowledge that is relevant and applicable to current local circumstances for primary and secondary school education. As Bischoff et al. (2018) explained in their study on higher education entrepreneurship education, to improve the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education, educators need to be deeply embedded in the stakeholder entrepreneurship ecosystem, and such refinement does not create one-size-fits-all models but requires repeated evaluations of different contexts. Entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools requires a more localised understanding of what is possible (Tang et al. 2016;Ramsgaard and Blenker 2021). The current study reveals that entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools is a complex topic that has been discussed in the literature in both narrow and broad terms (Kirkley 2017), defined by few (Davidsen 2015) or many characteristics (Ruskovaara et al. 2016), and implemented with variable support from government policies or school systems. Hanson (2020), who used a Delphi to study arts entrepreneurship, explained that by beginning a research project with a Delphi, researchers benefit from the diverse and dynamic knowledge of experts who collectively understand the local conditions, ideas about the foreseeable future, and the characteristics needed in entrepreneurship education to enable success.
Entrepreneurial success has been reshaped within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and one only needs to review literature in the last 3 years to find descriptions that are no longer appropriate. An example can be found in Ratten and Usmanij (2021), who discuss growth in international student-exchange programmes and multi-national entrepreneurs travelling for work as important to entrepreneurship education. While the current study is representative of the plethora of studies in entrepreneurship education, and findings are limited to the literature reviewed, it was found that a Delphi methodological approach to defining the characteristics of entrepreneurship education in schools was rarely used. Researchers instead tended to use a review of past literature to establish a definition of entrepreneurship education, and only on three occasions were stakeholders consulted. The ability of a Delphi to establish a relevant and current framework for further exploratory research (Bray et al. 2012) into how teachers and leaders successfully implement entrepreneurship education in primary and secondary schools suggests that it should be more common practice in future entrepreneurship education research.

A useful tool for researchers
A Delphi study complements the ever-evolving required characteristics of entrepreneurship education, as it can produce robust current and context-specific definitions from a small participant sample size (Irdayanti et al. 2015). The quality of decision making (Charro 2020) to define the characteristics of entrepreneurship education can be improved using the Delphi method through systematically and anonymously formed consensus between a variety of experts. Within the current study, the characteristics were limited to the categories the authors used to synthesise ideas about entrepreneurship across studies, and other researchers may have separated or synthesised ideas further. The Delphi process allows experts such as academic researchers, entrepreneurs, school principals, leaders of entrepreneurship education support programmes, and government education officials to collaborate and share their perspectives and ideas to make robust decisions-yet collectively provide invaluable, varied, and relevant perspectives. Anonymity may also improve group decision making (McPhail and McNeill 2019) between leaders on the characteristics of effective entrepreneurship education. Researchers can readily repeat a Delphi study conducted online to provide up-to-date, effective characteristics for entrepreneurship education when conditions or locations for entrepreneurship change. Experts for entrepreneurship education also tend to be busy and time deprived and therefore more willing to contribute to an efficient process where they can share their expertise in a Delphi study.
The dynamic nature of the social, economic and political environment for entrepreneurship contributes to the difficulty of defining entrepreneurship education. The current study highlighted that beginning a research project with a Delphi study provides a 'filter funnel' approach (Fig. 3) in order to refine a clearer and relevant set of definitions and characteristics, according to community stakeholders. This allows researchers to develop a framework of locally relevant entrepreneurship characteristics and knowledge that is needed to support this innovative cross-curricular approach, for the foreseeable future.
As Fig. 3 demonstrates, further research into leadership would enable insight into how entrepreneurship education is supported by primary and secondary school leaders (Hardie et al. 2022). A Delphi could be repeated by entrepreneurship education researchers to begin each new research project by ensuring characteristics are still relevant and applicable to the research site.   Future research A Delphi study to determine a local and current understanding of effect entrepreneurship education according to local stakeholders: primary and secondary school leaders, entrepreneurs, government officials, leaders of entrepreneurial support programmes, and academic researchers. Include in the Delphi study an opportunity for stakeholders to identify primary and secondary schools that foster effective entrepreneurial learning

Benefits of the Delphi method
The societal impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated how the slow, well-researched change to the physical classroom-based pedagogy of the past can accelerate direct and rapid change of school cultures to adjust to ongoing challenges with a curriculum that is responsive to what students need in order to be successful in their futures (Da Silva Vieira and Barbosa 2020).

Conclusion
This concluding section will outline the contribution and application of this research.

Contribution and application of the research
This paper argues researchers of entrepreneurship education apply the Delphi to review, clarify, and forecast contemporary characteristics that can identify community entrepreneurs, school leaders, and teachers effectively implementing entrepreneurship education. Researchers can then inquire into the key factors that have enabled their success and benefit for students. The current study reveals that research into the experiences of school leaders who have reformed entrepreneurship education was rare, which offers a new avenue of inquiry for researchers. This opportunity would inform school leaders and teachers of how innovations and changes that enable effective entrepreneurship education have been navigated and accommodated successfully into teaching and learning practice in schools. This would enable leaders and teachers to increase their capacity to be innovative in progressing entrepreneurship education for today for students' unknown futures.