Influence of Cognitive Factors on Self-Employment Intention Among Students in Technical, Vocational Education and Training in Kenya

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has been identified as a crucial activity for economic growth and employment generation worldwide. However, this has not been effective in most developing countries, Kenya as an example, has a high rate of unemployment among the young graduates emerging from universities and tertiary institutions. One of the government challenges is transforming the mindset of students to venture into business rather than seeking employments. This study thus examined the relationship between cognitive factors, entrepreneurship education and how these variables influence self-employment intentions among Technical and Vocational Education and Training in Kenya. The study objectives were to determine the influence of cognitive factors and the moderating effect of entrepreneurship education on students’ self-employment intentions. The study adopted a survey research design. Self-administered questionnaire was developed and administered to 400 diploma engineering finalist sampled from 41 public Institutions spread in five geographical regions in the country using multistage and simple random sampling approach. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20. Pearson’s Coefficient Correlation was used to examine reliability of data. Factor analysis was conducted to investigate the internal structure among the set of variables. Multiple linear regressions analysis was used to examine the effect of independent variables on the dependent variable. The results of findings showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between cognitive factors and self-employment intention. The results also showed that entrepreneurship education enhances cognitive factors and thus strongly influence self-employment intentions.