Academic performance of micro-entrepreneurs in business training programs: evidence from the application of an i4.0 educational system during the COVID-19 pandemic

There is limited information on the academic performance obtained by teaching through an i4.0 educational system. Therefore, this article aims to close the gap by presenting the existing literature and the quantitative results obtained from the evaluations and surveys made to micro-entrepreneurs with little knowledge of digital technologies, and in many cases with different levels of education, who have been trained during the COVID-19 pandemic, between August and December 2020. The business training program used an i4.0 educational system based on IoT, the cloud, social networks and Web services. The results showed that the participants achieved a satisfactory academic performance and met the objectives of the training program in business-related topics. Likewise, the results established that the academic performance of the student in a business training program through an i4.0 system is not directly related to the student's previous educational level.