Validating Entrepreneurial Intentions Questionnaire to Assess the Impact of Entrepreneurship Education

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education plays an important role in social and economic development of a society through providing self-employment and job opportunities for others. Entrepreneurship education can catalyse entrepreneurial mindset through developing entrepreneurial intentions of graduates. Current study aims to validate entrepreneurial intentions questionnaire in order to study the impact of entrepreneurship education on student’s intentions to become an entrepreneur. The question under study is “does entrepreneurship education impact entrepreneurial intentions of the students?” Study has the following objectives; 1) to study the impact of entrepreneurship education on attitude of the students to become an entrepreneur; 2) to find out perceived behavioural control of the entrepreneurship education students to become an entrepreneur; 3) to understand the impact of subjective norms on entrepreneurship education students to become an entrepreneur; 4) to assess the impact of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intentions of the students. This study will utilize theory of planned behaviour as theoretical framework of the study. According to theory of planned behaviour entrepreneurial intentions of a person are formed through a complex process with some antecedents. The antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions are comprised of attitude of the persons towards entrepreneurship; Subjective norms of a person towards entrepreneurship; and perceived behavioural control of a person towards entrepreneurial intentions. It is a quantitative study based on casual comparative research design. Entrepreneurial Intentions Questionnaire was developed based on theory of planned behaviour. It was pilot tested on students (n=60) for reliability and validation tests. It was validated to make a comparison between technology education students’ (n=240) who have participated in entrepreneurship education and technology education students’ (n=302) who have not participated in entrepreneurship education. The findings of the study have shown appropriateness of theory of planned behaviour to measure entrepreneurial intentions of the students. Students who have participated in entrepreneurship education have shown higher intentions than non participants. Study was concluded with the fact entrepreneurship education does not impact directly to the intentions of the students but it has influence on entrepreneurial intentions of the students through antecedents of intentions. The questionnaire validated for study can be useful for further measurement of entrepreneurial intentions of the students. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test reliability of questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to test validity of the questionnaire. t-test was applied to find out difference in intentions between entrepreneurship education participants and non participants. Structural equation model (SEM)was used to find out relationship between entrepreneurship education and antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions.

This study was knowledge addition about entrepreneurial intentions of the students in Pakistani context and impact of entrepreneurship education. Future study can be conducted to study the new venture creation process of the students with high entrepreneurial intentions.