The Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy on the Relationship Between Entrepreneurship Education and Entrepreneurial Intentions of University Students

Abstract

This paper has been written using data derived from a major study conducted by Oyugi (2011). The study investigated the contribution of entrepreneurship education to the development of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and intentions among university students in Uganda. The paper recognizes the development and the teaching of entrepreneurship courses in most universities in Uganda with the aim of rolling out students sufficiently equipped to become job creators. At a time when efforts are being made to address graduate unemployment through mainstream training in entrepreneurial skills in post-primary and post-secondary education, this paper provides timely guidance on the entrepreneurial curriculum. It proposes a quantitative analysis in which entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial self-efficacy are key to developing entrepreneurial intentions of students. To investigate this, two hypotheses were formulated. Data was collected by means of a mail survey questionnaire completed by students, randomly selected from a sampling frame of third year students, who had training in entrepreneurship course. The findings revealed that significant relationships exist between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention, while self-efficacy was found to partially mediate the entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention.