The Effect of Entrepreneurship Education on Entrepreneurial Intention: An Experimental Study on Undergraduate Business Students

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to reveal the effect of entrepreneurship education on entrepreneurial intentions of students. Participants of this study in which field experiment was carried out consisted of experimental group involving 207 participants who were exposed to experimental stimulus (entrepreneurship education) and control group involving 131 participants who had characteristics similar to experimental group but who were not exposed to experimental stimulus. Within this scope, this study was carried out by applying pre-test and post-test at the beginning and in the end of the term to measure entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate students at the Department of Business, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Gazi University who enrolled in the university the same year, and who were divided into two groups as experimental (received entrepreneurship education within 15-week syllabus) and control (did not receive entrepreneurship education). Findings of the study show that there was a statistically significant difference between the entrepreneurial intentions of students before (beginning of term) and after (end of term) receiving entrepreneurship education. While no significant difference was found in two dimensions of entrepreneurial intention namely “innovation and action” and “family support”, there were significant differences in the dimensions of “determination and perseverance”, challenges of starting business” and “negative thoughts on running one’s own business”. Furthermore, it was found that scores of experimental group in these three dimensions after receiving entrepreneurship education were higher than their scores before the education. On the other hand, compared to experimental group, control group did not show any significant difference both in their general entrepreneurial intentions and in each dimension of entrepreneurial intention.