Not-for-profit, research-based support for all Business Administration educators: entrepreneurship, finance, hospitality, management/administration, and marketing.
If you teach Business Administration, including Entrepreneurship, Finance, Hospitality/Tourism, Management/Administration, Marketing, or any specialty within these broad clusters, you’re at the right place.
Focus on what matters
What? Standards and research-based performance indicators to support most business careers, derived solely from the business community, become the basis for curriculum design.
Why? We have very limited time with our students in which to help them get started on their road to a career. These business-validated standards help ensure that our teaching time is focused on what matters most. They help us overcome the temptation to focus on what’s fun or what happens to be in any given book.
Free Access? The national Business Administration standards are available free to everyone:
Special Access? In addition to the master documents above, an interactive, online database is available to help you use the standards to design courses and programs of study to best meet your local needs. The Curriculum Builder software is available free in member states and for a nominal fee elsewhere.
Your Business Community! Feel like you need to get better connected with your own business community? Want your community’s business leaders involved in the research process? Wish your business leaders would advocate for your program? Learn more about how we can support your efforts locally. Visit the Business Community section of our website.
We are indebted to the Daniels Fund for its support of many curriculum and instructional tools throughout our store.
A generous grant from the Daniels Fund is supporting our initiatives to integrate ethical decision-making into our course guides and to build some 70 online instructional modules (LAPs) that will address ethics in the context of the national standards. In addition, the grant will support a new ethical leadership course as described below. These materials will be available free as they are released over the next five years.
The following guides are currently available at no cost:
More good news: These guides, available right now, will be updated over the next several years to better integrate ethics and ethical decision-making and to ensure that they continue to reflect the most recent thinking of the business community. As they are updated, you will be eligible to receive the revised versions – also at no cost. Click here for a release schedule.
These Guides are 100% aligned with the national Business Administration Curriculum Standards validated by industry across the nation. They provide a model that can be used as-is or modified to meet your specific needs.
Course Guides include:
“Course Guides have provided new and veteran Wisconsin marketing/business educators with the strategic roadmap to be successful in their classroom. Some educators have used the full Course Guide to expand their program offerings; whereas, other educators have strategically implemented the Course Guide’s project-based activities.”--Tim Fandek, WI state program leader and MBA Research Board Trustee
Course Guides in our online store: click here.
Based on current and anticipated Perkins law, we strongly advise all business and marketing programs to implement a comprehensive program-of-study. (A program-of-study, as defined by the U.S. Department of Education, is a logical, non-duplicate, sequence of courses that leads to a certification, degree, or other appropriate and documented end goal.) To help make implementation easier, we’ve built a series of models based on the national Business Administration standards, with specialties in:
Over the next several years, we’ll be rolling out 70 new and revised modules across most of our instructional areas. A good number of these will be used in the design of a new leadership course. These modules will come online individually, beginning summer of 2016. Many now available!
We’re particularly excited about our comprehensive, new leadership course targeted at ninth graders. As Career-Tech programs increasingly reach into the middle schools, this ninth grade leadership course will provide a significant opportunity for business and marketing programs to expand their presence in the earlier grades. We believe the course will encourage students to learn more about business and, ultimately, to enroll in upper division courses as outlined in our program-of-study kits. The free leadership course is now available!
In order to evaluate the impact of these free* materials, teachers are asked to complete a brief survey for each category of materials requested (e.g., Course Guides or Learning Modules). Each required survey will take 3 – 5 minutes to complete.
The purpose of the surveys is to estimate the impact that the free materials have. The Daniels Fund staff will consider aggregate data collected on these surveys to determine how effectively our profession is able to introduce ethical decision-making among secondary students.
*You’re right. Nothing’s really free. But in this case, we’re fortunate that the Daniels Fund has underwritten the cost of many of our materials. The Fund paid the bill so that you don’t have to! If you’d like to take a minute to extend your appreciation, simply email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and put in the subject line “Daniels.” We’ll get your note to the right people at the fund. Who knows? Maybe your note will be the tipping point for future funding! Thanks for taking the time.
For product descriptions and additional information, visit our online store. To locate these specific items, see:
Curriculum menu item = Program-of-Study kits and course guides
Learning Modules menu item = LAP Modules for instructional modules
You may also narrow your search further by selecting a specific topic of interest.
Building a new course has never been so easy!
Use the power of our new database tool to align with the national Business Administration standards to build almost any Business Administration course in:
It’s as easy as:
You get:
You pay: nothing (FREE to all educators in member states); $79 in non-member states (click here to order). Member state educators: email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we'll send your login info.
Already registered? To access the Curriculum Builder App, go to http://login.mbaresearch.org.
Each performance indicator is assigned to one of six curriculum-planning levels that represent a continuum of instruction ranging from simple to complex. The levels can serve as building blocks for curriculum development in that students should know and be able to perform the performance indicators at one level before tackling more complex skills and knowledge at the next level. The levels can also be used as the basis for developing an unduplicated sequence of instruction for articulation between high school and postsecondary business courses. The six curriculum-planning levels are:
| Prerequisite (PQ) | Content develops employability and job-survival skills and concepts, including work ethics, personal appearance, and general business behavior. |
| Career-Sustaining (CS) | Content develops skills and knowledge needed for continued employment in or study of business based on the application of basic academics and business skills. |
| Specialist (SP) | Content provides in-depth, solid understanding and skill development in all business functions. |
| Supervisor (SU) | Content provides the same in-depth, solid understanding and skill development in all business functions as in the specialist curriculum, and in addition, incorporates content that addresses the supervision of people. |
| Manager (MN) | Content develops strategic decision-making skills in all business functions needed to manage a business or department within an organization. |
| Owner (ON) | Content develops strategic decision-making skills in all aspects of business that are needed to own and operate a business. |
Three ways to access MBA LAPs:
To locate LAP Modules and PowerPoints in the online store, see the Learning Modules menu item.
For a list of our current LAPs, click here.
For LAP and PowerPoint pricing, click here.
To a download sample LAP, click here.
To learn about our MBA Learning Center (online access to all LAPs and PowerPoints), click here.
Interested in field testing/field reviewing our LAPs? Click here.
Click here for a webinar about LAP Modules.
Each LAP instructional module is a comprehensive, ready-to-use lesson plan designed to help make your preparation easy, fast, and relevant. Each module supports and provides instruction for an industry-validated performance indicator or competency and focuses on developing leadership skills, positive career-oriented attitude, and both technical and academic performance.
Each LAP provides easy and direct access to the content reflected in the national standards for marketing, management, finance, and business administration. LAPs are beneficial for your students because they deliver what's important with the depth needed to make a difference. Providing significantly more depth than a typical textbook, each LAP module will:
Each LAP is ready to use--no special preparation and no lesson plans to write! We provide you with everything needed, including:
Our unique CopyIT! release allows you to make additional copies for use in your school building, of any or all portions of any LAP Module purchased. Click here for more info.
We extend our deep appreciation to the Daniels Fund for its support of our work. A generous grant from the fund is supporting our initiatives to integrate ethical decision-making into our course guides and to build some 70 online instructional modules (LAPs) that will address ethics in the context of the national standards. These materials will be available free as they are released over the next five years. Many now available!
We’re particularly excited about our comprehensive, new leadership course targeted at ninth graders. As Career-Tech programs increasingly reach into the middle schools, this ninth grade leadership course will provide a significant opportunity for business and marketing programs to expand their presence in the earlier grades. We believe the course will encourage students to learn more about business and, ultimately, to enroll in upper division courses as outlined in our program-of-study kits. The free Ethical Leadership course is now available!
In order to evaluate the impact of these free* materials, teachers are asked to complete a brief survey for each category of materials requested (e.g., Course Guides or Learning Modules). Each required survey will take 3 – 5 minutes to complete.
The purpose of the surveys is to estimate the impact that the free materials have. The Daniels Fund staff will consider aggregate data collected on these surveys to determine how effectively our profession is able to introduce ethical decision-making among secondary students.
*You’re right. Nothing’s really free. But in this case, we’re fortunate that the Daniels Fund has underwritten the cost of many of our materials. The Fund paid the bill so that you don’t have to! If you’d like to take a minute to extend your appreciation, simply email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and put in the subject line “Daniels.” We’ll get your note to the right people at the fund. Who knows? Maybe your note will be the tipping point for future funding! Thanks for taking the time.
Click here to hear what teachers and students are saying about LAP Modules.
Even before this school year, our online MBA Learning Center was our best-selling, top-of-the-line instructional tool. Still is. But, silly us, we thought good as it is, we can do even better. So, we asked our users, our teacher-trainers, and our national teacher advisory network how. Their ideas led to changes like these:
All those features and benefits that made our old system our top seller are still in place. You get:
*You’ll find new or fully revised learning modules every week. Your research partners at MBA Research are on a mission: Keep the Learning Center up to date and build a module for every key performance indicator needed to deliver on the national standards. To that end, we update it nearly every day.
Release schedule
Available modules
Our new MBA Learning Center is based on a Canvas platform. In plain English, this means that it’s cutting edge technology that gives you complete control over how you use the content. It lets you organize content into courses any way you want. It supports 100% online learning so you can forget handwritten student papers, tests, and assignments. Our online how-to instructions get you up and running quickly, but that’s only the beginning. Webinars (live and recorded), how-to videos, and user groups (coming soon), and your own day-to-day experiences will help you explore and find new ways to make your classroom one of the best in the building. (Our up-to-date, real-world content doesn’t hurt either!)
Select by course
Not sure how to get started with the learning modules? Consider starting with our course designs and the list of modules we’ve identified for each individual course. Click here for a video on creating courses with LAPs.
Coming This Fall: Full Courses Available on the Learning Center
Are you an avid user of our comprehensive course guides? Do you teach business, marketing, finance, management, entrepreneurship, and/or leadership? If so, preparing for your classes is about to get a whole lot easier! This fall, the MBA Learning Center will include preloaded, ready-to-use courses for each of our course guides. Simply import the course into your class, and you’re ready to go with all of the content you need!
A single annual subscription to the MBA Learning Center may be shared (with separate logins) by up to five different teachers. Full 12-month subscription for 5 teachers: $595 (Member states) or $850 (Non-member). 5-year pricing available. Priced lower than a textbook and no dusty books to deal with!
Add to your teacher subscription: Give your individual students online access for the entire year.
| Member | Non-Member | |
| 10-100 | $5.50 | $7.85 |
| 101+ | $3.85 | $5.50 |
See the online store to purchase.
Coming this fall: The MBA Learning Center will feature a brand-new question bank for building your own custom assessments. The Question Bank will house thousands of multiple-choice test items appropriate for a variety of entrepreneurship, finance, management, and marketing courses. You’ll be able to quickly and easily pull test items by topic or performance indicator number, building assessments that accurately reflect your curriculum. Each test item is aligned to an industry-validated performance indicator and designed to effectively measure your students’ mastery of content. With the Question Bank, you’ll be able to:
The Question Bank will save you time and effort and is perfect for building pretests, end-of-course or end-of-unit exams, and more!
"I use the MBA Learning Center in all aspects of my teaching. I use it to introduce the material to the students, I use it to assess the students, I use it to give the students a little bit of variety, and I use it to differentiate the different levels of my classroom." -Alicia Weeks, Wake County Public Schools, NC
"I love to use MBA Research materials in my classroom because when I do, I know the students are getting relevant and current information that has been verified by industry professionals. They make it easy for me to pick and choose content that either accentuates what I am already doing or can be a whole unit or course. The choice is up to me." -Phil Huff, Badger High School, WI
"The activities are engaging for students and give a great variety for teachers to use depending on how in-depth you want to go into the subject and how you need to differentiate." -Teresa Brooks, Southington High School, CT
"I appreciate the website links for examples and videos." -Deanna Peck, Butler High School, NC
Programs of study are getting a lot of press in the CTE world right now—and likely will well into the future. After all, to receive funding via Perkins IV, recipients (e.g., local education agencies and postsecondary schools) must have at least one program of study in place.
What does that mean exactly? It means that schools must take a structured approach to delivering education that prepares students for postsecondary education and success. It means that students should begin their high-school course work with a plan in mind and then follow that plan so that they take a logical sequence of standards-based courses (both academic and career courses) that build on (not duplicate) each other—through grades 14 and/or 16. Finally, it means giving secondary students the opportunity to acquire postsecondary credit, industry certification, and/or a postsecondary degree.
MBA Research Programs of Study
To help you in the development of programs of study at your school and/or in your state, MBA Research has developed a number of different Program-of-Study (PoS) Resource Kits. These PoS Resource Kits (available free to all educators in member states via State’s Connection and to all others via our online store at nominal costs) can serve as starting points when creating Business Management and Administration, Entrepreneurship, Finance, and/or Marketing programs of study.
Each kit takes a holistic approach to each of the clusters, thereby providing students a broad foundation in business administration as well as a concentration in the cluster’s content.
The MBA Research Program-of-Study Resource Kits contain:
We’re working overtime to help you develop purposeful projects – projects that will help your students explore and gain competence in critical aspects of the national MBA Curriculum Standards. We’re adding free project ideas to MBA State’s Connection, incorporating projects in our for-sale course guides, and sharing additional ideas right here. And, we’ve designed an entire project-based model Business Administration program for college-bound students. Learn about MBA High School of Business™.
If you teach in any of our member states, be sure to visit State’s Connection. You’ll find an ever-expanding collection of free materials that will help you connect with our learning systems. The materials are free because your state has paid an annual membership fee to help underwrite the cost of our research. If your state is not a member, contact your state education department for additional information. In State’s Connection, you’ll find Programs of Study, rubrics, case problems, vetted and bookmarked websites, print-your-own posters, a master glossary of terms, and more. Keep checking as we add new stuff!
All of MBA Research research data, along with the Consortium’s entire range of services, are available to all Career-Tech student organizations (CTSO) serving Business Administration students. That said, DECA has been the most proactive of the three most recognized CTSOs in its efforts to align with the national Business Administration curriculum standards and to utilize the Consortium’s R&D capabilities.
More info: