Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intention Among Students of Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi Uku, Delta State of Nigeria

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether the course, entrepreneurship education is yielding the desired result of enhancing the capabilities of Nigerian graduates by creating in them the right mindset towards creating their own businesses rather than looking for non existing jobs. This is achieved through the analysis of relationship between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention among students of Delta State Polytechnic, Ogwashi Uku. This study made use of survey research design and was centered on only the final year students of the department of business administration. Data were collected for the study through the administration of structured questionnaires from three hundred and fifty (350) students of which three hundred and forty (340) were retrieved. Data analysis made use of descriptive and inferential statistics. The results from the regression analysis revealed that entrepreneurship education has a positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions of students with R squared value of 0.751, p-value = 0.000 which implies that 75 percent of the variation in entrepreneurial intentions is explained by variation in entrepreneurship education of students. From the studies, it was also discovered that personality has strong influence on students’ intention to venture into businesses after their graduation from school, with an R squared value of 0.737 and a p-value of 0.000. This informed the rejection of the null hypothesis that personality has no significant influence on entrepreneurship intention of students of Delta state polytechnic to venture into their own businesses after their education. It is therefore a matter of further research to investigate the reasons why graduates find it difficult to complete the AIDA cycle of Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. Entrepreneurial education has greatly helped to create attention and stimulate both their interest and desire to venture into businesses. What is left is therefore the final push to put into practice what they have learnt.

DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/11-20-09

Publication date:July 31^st 2019