The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of importance of each of the curriculum competencies in the National Standards for Business Education (NBEA, 1995) for the successful performance of beginning secondary business teachers in Virginia as perceived by experienced and inexperienced business teachers. The standards consist of 102 competencies in the 11 subject areas of business education.

The questionnaire used in the research study was an original survey instrument developed by the researcher after a review of the literature did not reveal an instrument that could be used with the NBEA document. The survey instrument was mailed to a sample of public high school business teachers in Virginia who were systematically selected from an available population. Results from the demographic question on the survey resulted in the identification of 161 experienced business teachers and 18 inexperienced business teachers.

Means, standard deviations, and t-tests were used to describe the data. The competencies were rated with a five-point Likert scale. All competencies were rated as having either essential importance, above average importance, or average importance. Of the 102 competencies, experienced business teachers identified 11 as having essential importance, 86 as having more than average importance, and 5 as having average importance. Inexperienced business teachers rated 11 competencies as having essential importance, 87 as having more than average importance, and 4 as having average importance. When comparing the experienced and the inexperienced teachers' lists of rated competencies, 9 competencies rated as essential importance were the same for both groups, and 3 competencies rated as average were the same for both groups. When comparing the overall content areas, no significant differences existed between the perceptions of the experienced business teachers and the inexperienced business teachers.