The Effect of the Quality of Entrepreneurship Education and Students' Participation on Entrepreneurial Competence and Entrepreneurial Intention

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate whether the entrepreneurship education conducted by universities affects university students' competence and their entrepreneurial intention. The empirical study was conducted to verify the structural relationship between the quality of entrepreneurship education and students' willingness to participate, entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial intention. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on 360 university students in Busan, Ulsan and Gyeongnam Province who experienced entrepreneurship education. The survey took place in parallel with face-to-face and online surveys from early January to late May 2020. The frequency analysis was conducted using SPSS to analyze the status of the data collected through the survey. In addition, reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis were performed to verify the reliability and validity of the measurement tool, and confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and structural equation model analysis were conducted to verify the research hypothesis of this study using AMOS. The empirical study was conducted to verify the structural relationship between the quality of entrepreneurship education and students' willingness to participate, entrepreneurial competence and entrepreneurial intention. The results are summarized as follows. First, the quality of entrepreneurship education of universities had a significant positive effect on students' participation in entrepreneurship education. Second, the quality of entrepreneurship education had a significant positive effect on entrepreneurship competence. Third, participation in entrepreneurship education had a significant positive effect on entrepreneurship competence. Fourth, the participation in entrepreneurship education had a significant positive effect on the entrepreneurial intention. Fifth, the entrepreneurial competence had a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial intention. However, the quality of entrepreneurship education did not have a direct and significant effect on the entrepreneurial intention, which showed a contrast. In conclusion, based on the results, the university needs to improve the quality of practical entrepreneurship education and to encourage students to participate actively in entrepreneurship education in order to strengthen their entrepreneurship competence.