The role of entrepreneurship training on students’ entrepreneurial attitude and general self-efficiency beliefs

Higher education through applied knowledge transfer in the context of employment, developing skills and abilities required in the context of entrepreneurship, cultural infrastructure and supporting research and development of entrepreneurship, drives concepts of entrepreneurship into the university. Additionally, higher education directs students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes of students towards entrepreneurship and becoming entrepreneurs. The aim of this research was to examine the role of entrepreneurship training on entrepreneurial attitude and general self-efficiency belief among Shahid Beheshti’s students. The research method was quasi-experimental, pre-test, post-test design and control group without random sampling. The statistical population was all undergraduate students in industrial management, computer science, mathematics who were permitted to select entrepreneurship course in second semester, 2009-2010 academic year. Thirty students were selected as a sample by using purposeful sampling method. Fifteen students were assigned to an experimental group who received entrepreneurship training and fifteen students-consistent with experimental group in terms of age, gender, major and admission year - who did not take the course were placed in a control group. The main instruments were Robinson Entrepreneurship Scale and Sherer General Self-efficiency Belief Scale. The content validity was determined by faculty members. The reliability of questionnaire computed via Chronbach's Alpha for RES (α = 0.84) and SGSEBS (α = 0.72). Inferential statistics procedures including independent t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. Findings showed that entrepreneurship training had a positive effect on general self-efficiency belief and entrepreneurial attitude. There also was significant relationship between entrepreneurial attitude and general self-efficiency belief.