An assessment of entrepreneurial self-efficacy among technical college students: the case of Nasawa Technical College

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is believed to be the solution to unemployment problems in many parts of the world. However, for one to venture into an entrepreneurial lifestyle, a person has to demonstrate to have high levels of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE). ESE is a way to assess a person who can likely become an entrepreneur. Purpose of the study was to assess students’ perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy at Nasawa Technical College. Since the introduction of Entrepreneurship Education in the TVET system in 2006, no study has been conducted to assess students’ perceived efficacy. The study established three objectives: to assess levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy among TVET students respective of their programme of study; to determine levels of entrepreneurial self-efficacy among students exposed to entrepreneurship education against students not exposed to entrepreneurship education; and to establish the extent of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in relation to gender. Data was collected using a questionnaire which had 31 items. Reliability test of the instrument recorded 0.98 on Cronbach alpha. A total of 119 final year students participated in the study sampled from six different programmes. The SPSS version 20 software package was used to analyse the data and non-parametric tests such as Mann Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were applied to provide inferences to the results. There was no statistically significant difference among students pursuing different courses in levels of perceived entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Students who were exposed to entrepreneurship education perceived their efficacy higher than students not exposed to entrepreneurship education and the differences were statistically significant on the Mann Whitney U test. Male students perceived their efficacy significantly higher than female students on all entrepreneurial domains and the outcome was also statistically significant on Mann Whitney U test. The study recommended that entrepreneurship education should be taught to all students so that all apprentices enrolled in technical colleges should be exposed to entrepreneurship training regardless of the mode of entry into college and the entrepreneurship education should emphasise on modelling to develop female students’ efficacy. A recommendation for further study there is a need to examine entrepreneurial self-efficacy for trainers and investigate how many students actually start their own businesses after being exposed to entrepreneurship education and after graduating from a technical college.