Diversity in Entrepreneurship Classroom: Pedagogical Implications for Managing Higher Education

Abstract

Management researchers and practitioners suggest that higher education institutions need to design entrepreneurial curriculum to prepare today’s graduates for job creation. The contents of students’ entrepreneurship skills acquisitions might differ according to each institution and the inability to recognise diversity of learners in entrepreneurship classrooms has wider implications for educational administrators. Hence, the objective of this paper is to identify whether entrepreneurship intention comes with different levels for university graduates using the theory of planned behaviour. A cross-sectional survey design and simple random sampling approach yielded 1159 business students from Ghanaian private and public universities. Construct and face validity outcomes for 33 questionnaire items measuring students’ entrepreneurship intention were check with Cronbach’s alpha reliability of 0.94. Multiple regression, one-way ANOVA, and descriptive statistics were the data analysis tools. Whilst our findings revealed a progressive entrepreneurship skills acquisition amongst students, there were also statistical difference between these progressions. Collectively, socio-economic background, computer access, and choice of private sector for employment explained 6% variance in entrepreneurship intention. Therefore, we concluded that the practice of grouping individuals for entrepreneurship-training programmes might be counterproductive in meeting unique learning needs and recommended that higher education institutions should recognise learners’ differences in entrepreneurial programmes. Hence, formative assessment of budding entrepreneurs’ skills levels should be a basis for rotational model practices. Other recommendations for government entrepreneurship programmes, diversity management, and curriculum design are discussed.

Key Words: entrepreneurship, theory of planned behaviour, educational management, and access to technology