Abstract
Studies of the socio-economic function of entrepreneurship have emphasized the critical role that entrepreneurial competence and its implementation play at different stages of the education system. In this paper, as a research objective, we seek to determine the entrepreneurial interest of Spanish youth aged between 15 and 18 years of age enrolled in formal secondary education programs, an initial stage in the development of entrepreneurship. A previously validated ad hoc questionnaire is applied through simple random sampling to 1764 students at secondary school in Spain. A descriptive cross-sectional study is carried out. The analysis is done with Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), a technique that reduces the high dimensionality of data through Cooperative Maximum Likelihood Hebbian Learning (CMLHL), applying neurocomputational methods to the educational sciences. We find as key results that Spanish youth express a medium level of interest in entrepreneurship. Analysis with ANNs shows that education in entrepreneurial competence is an influential aspect of interest in entrepreneurship. As a conclusion, our results suggest that educational and curricular reforms must be undertaken to promote the development of entrepreneurial competence at various stages of education in order to increase interest in entrepreneurship.
Highlights
Entrepreneurship is a key component of social and economic development, due to its potential positive impact on multiple beneficial outcomes including, among others, innovation, competitiveness, job creation, and personal success [1]
As the objective of our investigation was centered on determining the entrepreneurial interest of youth students aged between 15 and 18 years, we activated the localization of the variable on entrepreneurial interest (P.40) with the five characteristics that provide its dimensions
The results show that the entrepreneurial interest of Spanish students is medium
Summary
Entrepreneurship is a key component of social and economic development, due to its potential positive impact on multiple beneficial outcomes including, among others, innovation, competitiveness, job creation, and personal success [1]. As indicated by Escolar-Llamazares et al [9], in the European Union, and notably in Spain, young people are among those most affected by the crisis and imbalance of the economic system and they are frequently unaware of the opportunities that entrepreneurship offers as an increasingly accessible alternative. More recent data show that, in 2018, up to 53.1% of the Spanish population between 18 and 64 years considered entrepreneurship a good professional option This figure has remained approximately constant at the 53–54% level since 2013, yet in the period from 2010 to 2012, it was around 65–70%. This decline coincides with the economic crisis that Spain suffered and has possibly made people more aware of the risks and difficulties that entrepreneurs assume, leading to the perception that entrepreneurship is not such an attractive option [15]
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