Entrepreneurship Education: A Students' Perspective

Abstract

Entrepreneurship education is believed to provide students with understanding of concepts of entrepreneurship, train and motivate them to indulge into entrepreneurial activities in future. This is an empirical study to explore the entrepreneurship education in engineering discipline from the perspective of students. The study also attempts to unearth the factors that motivate them to take entrepreneurial activities and their perceived hurdles. Data about the opinion of students regarding entrepreneurship education has been collected from 168 students. The data has been analyzed using various statistical tools. It is found that the students are highly interested in starting their own business. They consider that decision making skills, risk taking capacity, creativity, communication skills and ability to prepare business plan are the most important skills for a successful entrepreneur. They feel motivated to start their own business because of intrinsic factors like being their own boss, chasing their dreams. Lack of experience and lack of funds are the most deterring factors.

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Keywords: BuddingEntrepreneurs,Entrepreneurship,EntrepreneurshipEducation,HigherEducation,
MotivationforEntrepreneurs,Students’Perspective
ABSTRACT
Entrepreneurshipeducationisbelievedtoprovidestudentswithunderstandingofconceptsofentrepreneur-
ship,trainandmotivatethemtoindulgeintoentrepreneurialactivitiesinfuture.Thisisanempiricalstudyto
exploretheentrepreneurshipeducationinengineeringdisciplinefromtheperspectiveofstudents.Thestudy
alsoattemptstounearththefactorsthatmotivatethemtotakeentrepreneurialactivitiesandtheirperceived
hurdles.Dataabouttheopinionofstudentsregardingentrepreneurshipeducationhasbeencollectedfrom
168students.Thedatahasbeenanalyzedusingvariousstatisticaltools.It isfoundthatthe studentsare
highlyinterestedinstartingtheirownbusiness.Theyconsiderthatdecisionmakingskills,risktakingcapac-
ity,creativity,communicationskillsandabilitytopreparebusinessplanarethemostimportantskillsfora
successfulentrepreneur.Theyfeelmotivatedtostarttheirownbusinessbecauseofintrinsicfactorslikebeing
theirownboss,chasingtheirdreams.Lackofexperienceandlackoffundsarethemostdeterringfactors.
Entrepreneurship Education:
A Students’ Perspective
MuktaMani,DepartmentofHumanitiesandSocialSciences,JaypeeInstituteofInformation
Technology,Noida,India
1. INTRODUCTION
It is well understood that entrepreneurship has a significant impact on economic growth (Carree
et al., 2002). Some early researchers argued that entrepreneurs are born not bred. It is beyond
the capabilities of business schools or universities to teach individuals to become more enter-
prising (Johannison, 1991). In general, individuals are reluctant to take entrepreneurial career,
since they consider it to be highly uncertain and risky (Petridou et al., 2009). However, recent
studies show that entrepreneurship can be promoted through entrepreneurship education and
training (Petridou and Glaveli, 2008). The entrepreneurship education has been defined as a
collection of formalized teachings that educate anyone interested in business creation (Bechard
and Toulouse, 1998). The entrepreneurship education can trigger the entrepreneurial initiatives
by enhancing entrepreneurial mindset among the students (Petridou et al., 2009; Lubis, 2014). A
study conducted on college students in China conclude that entrepreneurship education should be
included in colleges and universities’ reform and development plan, personnel training system,
and teaching evaluation index system (Zou, 2015).
DOI: 10.4018/ijeei.2015010101

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2 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
The need of entrepreneurship education has been well established in the recent studies.
However, there is a debate on how the education should be provided, what is the students’ per-
ception on the entrepreneurship education. There is a debate about the role of universities and
business schools in their contribution to entrepreneurship education (Kirby, 2004). It is argued
that the traditional education system does not promote the attributes and skills that are required
to produce entrepreneurs. The traditional education system teaches students how to become a
good employee instead of a successful entrepreneur (Solomon, 1989). It has been proposed that
considerable changes are required in the process of learning. Entrepreneurship should not be
equated with new venture creation but with creativity and change (Kirby, 2004).
The above discussion highlights that the entrepreneurship education is important for promot-
ing entrepreneurship, but there is a need to carry out more research on the way of providing the
entrepreneurship education. The students are one of main stakeholders in the entrepreneurship
education process. The current study is purporting to study the perspective of the students: what
students understand about the entrepreneurship education; what is their level of awareness and
what are their concerns about the entrepreneurship education. The study is organized in five
sections. Section 2 contains study of more literature about the study, the research methodology
has been discussed in Section 3 and Section 4 contains data analysis and discussion. The conclu-
sions have been made in Section 5.
2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1. Entrepreneurship Education Programs
The entrepreneurship programs run by business schools equate entrepreneurship with new venture
creation and educate “about” entrepreneurship rather than educating for entrepreneurship (Kirby,
2004). The skill set needed to become entrepreneur include; persuasion skills, creativity, critical
thinking, leadership skills, negotiation skills, problem solving skills, social networking and time
management (Rae, 1997). To activate creativity and innovation, right brain thinking is required.
The right brain thinking deals with uncertainties, open-ended questions, decision making with
incomplete information, lateral thinking, intuitive thinking (Lewis, 1987). The entrepreneurship
education programs should be designed in such a way to activate the right brain thinking of
the students. Nowadays, entrepreneurship education programs use different teaching methods
including lectures, guest speakers, case studies and role models (Solomon, 2007; Wilson et al.,
2007). While designing the education program for entrepreneurs, the following points should be
kept in mind- Student specific requirements should be understood; the teaching should be more
specific to student requirements; didactic methods such as lectures, readings, text books and
seminar should be used for providing new information; active case studies, group discussions,
brainstorming etc. should be used for skills building; problem solving in real-world situation,
consultancy with small firms should be taken to provide hands-on experience. The output should
be assessed on behavioral and skill outcomes, product development, prototypes etc. (Hynes,
1996). It has also been found that there are gender differences in the motivational factors for
participating in entrepreneurship program. There is a need to customize education programs to
serve the need of female and male students. The entrepreneurship programs should be designed
to inform the students about the real world conditions and presenting the ways in which the
complexities can be overcome (Petridou et al., 2009).
In a research conducted in United Kingdom in 2007, business schools are found to be the
main higher education institutions to provide entrepreneurship education. Nevertheless other

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International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015 3
disciplines also have a significant role to play in entrepreneurship education. Faculty of engineer-
ing follows business schools in providing Entrepreneurship education (Matlay and Carey, 2007;
Mc Keown et al., 2006). In terms of number of startups created by the students it is found that
science, technology, engineering, art and design faculties create more start-ups as compared to
business disciplines (Mc Keown et al., 2006). Other researchers have highlighted that interdis-
ciplinary project between business and non-business faculties in entrepreneurship education are
very rewarding (Bechard and Crregoire, 2005).
2.2. Students’ Perception
In a study conducted on Post graduation students in United Kingdom, it was found that gaining
skills and knowledge to help them start a business, developing confidence, developing capabilities
to start a business were the main expectations of students from the entrepreneurship education.
The students also responded that their skills about new venture planning, recognizing and develop-
ing opportunities have developed due to participation in entrepreneurship module. The students
perceived financial planning to be least valuable and market research as significantly valuable
while creative thinking is considered to be highly valuable (Rae and Woodier-Harris, 2012).
In a study conducted on university students in Malaysia, the researchers concluded that the
students’ attitude in terms of innovation, self-control, tolerance for ambiguity and risk control
is low. The students also display low capabilities for environmental analysis, idea generation
and market sensitivity. The study also highlights the students’ perception about the readiness
of universities to provide entrepreneurship education. According to the study, the universities
lack to provide entrepreneurial environment in terms of campus conditions, lecturers, curricu-
lum, and support to carryout entrepreneurial activities on campus (Norasmah, Norashidah and
Hariyaty, 2012).
The above discussion emphasizes that there are gaps in the entrepreneurship education pro-
vided in the universities and colleges and the expectations of the students. The right sets of skills
that are required for becoming a successful entrepreneur are needed to be developed through a
well drafted curriculum. Students widely differ in their expectations from the entrepreneurship
education programs and thus there is a need for providing customized programs. The students’
perception about the entrepreneurship education differs from the programs currently being con-
ducted. Moreover, non-business disciplines are producing higher number of entrepreneurs, thus
there is a need to promote entrepreneurship education in non-business disciplines also. Prompted
by these considerations, the aim of this study is to understand the engineering students’ perspec-
tive about entrepreneurship education; to identify the factors that motivate them and to find out
the factors which deter them to take entrepreneurship as a career option. The study also attempts
to find out the skill sets required to become a successful entrepreneur.
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The discussion in the previous section draws attention to the fact that the entrepreneurship edu-
cation should focus on developing the right skill sets for entrepreneurs. The programs should
be customized according to the students’ needs. And the entrepreneurship education should
be promoted in non-business disciplines. Therefore, in this research paper, we have attempted
to understand the entrepreneurship education from students’ point of view. The following six
research questions have been framed:

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4 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
RQ1: What percentages of students wish to pursue entrepreneurship in engineering discipline?
RQ2: What do students perceive about the need of entrepreneurship as a subject in engineering
curriculum?
RQ3: What do students perceive about the importance of entrepreneurship as a subject?
RQ4: What skills are important to become an entrepreneur?
RQ5: What motivates the students to take entrepreneurship as a career option?
RQ6: What deters the students to take entrepreneurship as a career option?
The above research questions have been addressed through primary data collected from stu-
dents. Since the study is focused on the entrepreneurship education in non-business disciplines,
engineering students have been considered for data collection. A well-structured, close-ended
questionnaire is developed to collect the data from students. The questionnaire includes ques-
tions about their desire to become entrepreneur, the motivating and deterring factors, and their
perception about the importance of entrepreneurship education (see Table 15 in the Appendix).
Before administering the questionnaire to respondents, a pilot study is carried out to check the
reliability and validity of the instrument.
The validity of the questionnaire was tested through detailed discussion with experts and
faculty members of entrepreneurship education. The pilot study was conducted on 45 students.
The reliability of the questionnaire was tested by calculating Cronbach’s alpha coefficient as in
Table 1. The Cronbach’s alpha is a measure of internal consistency of the research instrument
(Christmann & S, 2006). A Cronbach’s alpha value, greater than 0.7 is considered to be acceptable.
It indicates that the instrument is fit for the study (Peterson, 1994). The Cronbach’s alpha of our
questionnaire was found to be 0.801, which is clearly higher than 0.7. Thus the questionnaire is
found to be fit for the study. The final questionnaire was administered to around 200 students of
two engineering colleges located in National capital Region of India. The colleges are all private
colleges and students are in the final year of their engineering degree. Finally, 168 completely
filled questionnaires have been used for further study.
4. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The data collected through the questionnaire has been analyzed using SPSS 16.0 software. The
questions in the questionnaire were focused towards the research questions so data analysis has
been done question-wise in the following subsections.
4.1. RQ1: What Percentages of Students Wish to Pursue
Entrepreneurship in Engineering Discipline?
The students were asked whether they plan to start their own business in future. They were asked
to choose one of the five options given to them. The responses in Table 2 reveal that 87 percent
of the students wish to start their own business sooner or later; only 13 percent of students will
never start their own business. Out of total 87 percent students who wish to start their own busi-
Table1.Reliabilitystatistics
Number of Cases Cronbach’s Alpha Number of Items
45 0.801 9

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International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015 5
ness, only 2 percent of the students wish to start their business immediately after graduation and
the largest number of students (42 percent) wishes to start business after 1 to 5 years of college.
Subsequently 32 percent of students wish to start their business after 5 to 10 years of college.
Further, to check the significance of the results, t-test has been conducted on the data. The
results of t-test shown in Table 3 indicate that the t-value is significant at 95 percent confidence
interval. The mean (=2.13) is significantly different from zero. We may interpret that the students
wish to start their own business mainly after 5 to 10 years of college or 1 to 5 years after college.
Thus, we may conclude that majority of students wish to enter into business but not immediately
after college. The reason behind this may be their wish to gain some experience or they may
wish to save some money for starting the business.
4.2. RQ2: What do Students Perceive about the Need of
Entrepreneurship as a Subject in Engineering Curriculum?
The students were asked to give their opinion about the need of entrepreneurship education in
engineering colleges. The data analysis in Table 4 reveals that 84 percent of the students perceive
Table2.Descriptivestatistics-Question:Doyouplantostartyourownbusinessinthefuture?
(Variable1)
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Never 22 13%
Immediately after college 4 2%
1 to 5 years after college 70 42%
5 to 10 years after college 54 32%
After 10 years 18 11%
Table3.Onesamplet-testofvariable1
Mean t df Sig.
(2-Tailed)
Mean
Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
2.13 18.135 167 0.000 2.127 1.89 2.36
Test Value = 0
Table4. Descriptivestatistics-Statement:Entrepreneurshipshould betaughtinengineering
colleges.(Variable2)
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Strongly Agree 57 34%
Agree 85 50%
Neutral 20 12%
Disagree 6 4%
Strongly Disagree 0 0%

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6 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
that entrepreneurship education should be provided in engineering colleges and 34 percent of
the students strongly agree with the fact. Only 4 percent students believe that entrepreneurship
should not be taught in engineering colleges. To check the significance of results obtained,
one-sample t-test has been conducted on the data in Table 5. The results show that the t-value
is significant at 95 percent level of confidence interval. It indicates that the results we obtained
are not by chance. The mean value (=1.14) is significantly different from zero. Thus we may
interpret that the students perceive entrepreneurship should be taught in engineering curriculum.
The findings match with many earlier studies where researchers have found that entre-
preneurship should be taught in engineering colleges. However entrepreneurship education is
not yet common in engineering institutions. There is no dearth of entrepreneurship aptitude in
the students, but engineering institutions have played a passive role (Nelson and Byers, 2010;
Kanduja and Kaushik, 2009). Recently some Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have started
incubation centers and e-cells etc. to promote entrepreneurship but still there is a need to change
the scenario across the country.
4.3. RQ3: What do Students Perceive about the
Importance of Entrepreneurship as a Subject?
To answer the above question two statements were put up to the students for their opinion. Firstly,
the entrepreneurship education is useful for students even if they never plan to start their own
business and second, entrepreneurs are born, entrepreneurship can’t be taught in classroom.
From the data analysis in Table 6, it is found that 74 percent of the students consider that
entrepreneurship is useful for students even if they never plan to start their business, while only
8 percent of students disagree with the statement. The data in Table 7 shows that 53 percent of
the students disagree with the statement thus they believe that entrepreneurship can be taught
in classroom, 21 percent of students agree with the statement. 26 percent of the students are
neutral to this statement.
Table5.Onesamplet-testofvariable2
Mean t df Sig. (2-Tailed) Mean
Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the
Difference
Lower Upper
1.14 12.980 167 0.000 1.139 0.96 1.31
Test Value = 0
Table6.Descriptivestatistics-Statement:TheEntrepreneurshipeducationisusefulforstudents
eveniftheyneverplantostarttheirownbusiness.(Variable3)
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Strongly Agree 26 16%
Agree 98 58%
Neutral 30 18%
Disagree 14 8%
Strongly Disagree 0 0%

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The responses were further tested to check whether the mean values obtained are significantly
different from zero, where the zero means neutral. One-sample t-tests were conducted on the
data and the results are shown in Table 8 and Table 9. The results show that the means values
are significantly different from zero. Although the mean values are small, 0.46 for Variable 3
and 0.78 for Variable 4. Thus it may be interpreted that the students believe entrepreneurship
education to be important but they don’t attach too much importance to the same.
As of the analysis shown in Tables 8 and 9, we may interpret that, students understand the
importance of entrepreneurship education although they themselves have never studied entre-
preneurship. They feel that the entrepreneurship education is valuable and the entrepreneurs can
be prepared by teaching entrepreneurship. In India, entrepreneurship education is completely
missing at school level education. The debate at large is about the promotion of entrepreneurship
education at higher education level. However, our argument is that entrepreneurship education is
important from the basic levels of learning. The entrepreneurship education should be provided
to the students even if they never plan to start their own business. And we should believe that
entrepreneurship activity can be developed by teaching entrepreneurship. The following lines
of John Dearborn (Dearborn, 2012) emphasize the same thoughts:
Table7.Descriptivestatistics-Statement:Entrepreneursareborn.Entrepreneurshipcan’tbe
taughtinclassroom.(Variable4)
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Strongly Agree 7 4%
Agree 29 17%
Neutral 44 26%
Disagree 70 42%
Strongly Disagree 18 11%
Table8.Onesamplet-testofvariable3
Mean
Test Value = 0
t df Sig.
(2-Tailed) Mean Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
0.46 4.228 167 .000 .456 .24 .67
Table9.Onesamplet-testofvariable4
Mean
Test Value = 0
t df Sig.
(2-tailed)
Mean
Difference
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
0.78 9.149 167 .000 .785 .61 .96

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8 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
Whileentrepreneurshipclasses aredesignedto give budding entrepreneursthetools to turn
anewideaintoreality,theirvaluemaybeevengreaterthanthat:Ithinkitgivesall students
theabilitytoviewtheircareersandopportunitiesinadifferentlight.It’ssoimportantthatthe
benefitsofanentrepreneurial-focusededucationareavailabletoallstudentsandnotjustthose
planningonenteringthestart-upworld.(JohnDearborn,President,JumpstartInc.)
4.4. RQ4: What Skills are Important to Become an Entrepreneur?
The students were given a closed-ended question to rate the given set of skills according the
importance of those skills to become a successful entrepreneur. The results are shown in Table
10. Decision making skills and risk taking capacity are the top rated skills as they have got 92
percent and 90 percent score respectively. Communication skill is the next most important skill at
87 percent score. Creativity and ability to prepare business plan have got 86 percent score each.
Sales techniques and knowledge of finance have been given least importance by the students as
their scores are 78 percent and 77 percent respectively.
The mean values of the score vary from 3.61 to 2.81. So we need to know whether the mean
values differ significantly from each other. An Analysis of Variance has been carried out to test
the following hypothesis:
H0: All the skills are equally important i.e. µ1=µ2=µ3=µ4=µ5=µ6=µ7=µ8
H1: At least two means are different.
The results in Table 11 show that the p-value is 1.86936E-14, which is less than α = 0.05, the
assumed level of significance. Therefore, there is enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis.
This means that the difference in the importance of various skills cannot be attributed to chance.
At least one of the skills is significantly more important than the other skills.
The data analysis in Table 11 signifies that the at least one of skills is significantly more
important than the other. If we examine the descriptive statistics in Table 10, it is seen that the
mean values are not very different from each other. Therefore, it is important to examine, the
mean of which skill is significantly higher than the other. The results of descriptive analysis give
rise to following hypothesis:
Table10.Descriptivestatistics-Question:Whichofthefollowingskillsareimportanttobea
successfulentrepreneur?Giveratings.(Variable5)
S.No. Skills Importance
(Percentage) Average Variance
1 Decision making skills 92% 3.61 0.29
2 Risk taking capacity 90% 3.49 0.25
3 Communication skills 87% 3.29 0.59
4 Creativity 86% 3.28 0.41
5 Ability to prepare business plan 86% 3.27 0.61
6 Negotiation skills 84% 3.15 0.59
7 Sales techniques 78% 2.84 0.73
8 Knowledge of finance 77% 2.81 0.69

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International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015 9
Set I:
H0: Risk taking capacity and Creativity are equally important µ1=µ2
H1: Risk taking capacity is more important than Creativity µ2>µ1
Set II:
H0: Decision making skill and Risk taking capacity are equally important µ2=µ7
H1: Decision making skill are more important than Risk taking capacity µ7>µ2
Set III:
H0: Creativity and Communication skills are equally important µ1=µ6
H1: Communication skills are more important than Creativity µ6>µ1
Set IV:
H0: Sales techniques and Knowledge of Finance are equally important µ4=µ5
H1: Sales techniques are more important than Knowledge of Finance µ4>µ5
Set V:
H0: Creativity and Negotiation skills are equally important µ1=µ8
H1: Creativity is more important than Negotiation skills µ1>µ8
The hypothesis presented in the above five sets have been examined using five independent
sample t-test. The results are presented in Table 12.
The results of the t-tests as presented in Table 12 indicate the following results:
• The null hypothesis of Set I is rejected: This is because the p-value is equal to 0.0100.
Since the p value is less than 0.05, assumed level of significance, the hypothesis of equal-
Table11.Analysisofvarianceforvariable5
Source of Variation SS df MS F P-Value F Crit
Between Groups 43.93513 7 6.276447 12.03718 1.86936E-14 2.024238
Within Groups 325.3671 1336 0.521422
Total 369.3022 1343
Table12.Independentsamplet-testsforhypothesisgiveninSetItoSetV
Skills Mean Variance df t Stat P(T<=t)
One-Tail
t Critical
One-Tail
Set I
Creativity 3.2785 0.4086 334 -2.3511 0.0100 1.6547
RiskTakingcapacity 3.4937 0.2532
Set II
Decisionmakingskills 3.6076 0.2928 334 3.2008 0.0008 1.6547
Risktakingcapacity 3.2658 0.6079
Set III
Communicationskills 3.2911 0.5936 334 0.1124 0.4553 1.6547
Creativity 3.2785 0.4086
Set IV
Salestechniques 2.8354 0.7290 334 0.1886 0.4253 1.6547
KnowledgeofFinance 2.8101 0.6943
Set V
Creativity 3.2785 0.4086 334 1.1247 0.1312 1.6547
NegotiationSkills 3.1519 0.5920

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10 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
ity of mean of two skills is rejected in favor of the alternate hypothesis. Therefore it can be
concluded that Risk taking capacity is more important than Creativity;
• The null hypothesis of Set II is rejected: This is because the p-value is equal to 0.0008.
Since the p value is less than 0.05, assumed level of significance, the hypothesis of equal-
ity of mean of two skills is rejected in favor of the alternate hypothesis. Therefore it can
be concluded that Decision making skills are more important than Risk taking capacity;
• The null hypothesis of Set III is accepted: This is because the p-value is equal to 0.4553.
Since the p value greater than 0.05, assumed level of significance, the hypothesis of equality
of mean of two skills is accepted. Therefore it can be concluded that Communication skills
and Creativity are equally important;
• The null hypothesis of Set IV is accepted: This is because the p-value is equal to 0.4253.
Since the p value is greater than 0.05, assumed level of significance, the hypothesis of equal-
ity of mean of two skills is accepted. Therefore it can be concluded that Sales techniques
and Knowledge of finance are equally important;
• The null hypothesis of Set V is accepted: This is because the p-value is equal to 0.1312.
Since the p value is greater than 0.05, assumed level of significance, the hypothesis of
equality of mean of two skills is accepted. Therefore it can be concluded that Creativity and
Negotiation skills are equally important.
From the above analysis it can be concluded that Decision making skills are statistically
most important. Risk taking capacity is the second most significantly important skill, and then
Creativity, Communication skills and Negotiation skills are statistically equally important fol-
lowed by Sales techniques and Knowledge of Finance which are statistically equally important.
4.5. RQ5: What Motivates the Students to Take
Entrepreneurship as a Career Option?
The students were asked to choose among the factors that motivate them to take entrepreneurship
as a career option. They were free to choose more than one option as well. The responses have
been shown in Table 13. It is seen that the largest number of respondents i.e. 64 percent have
chosen ‘Being your own boss’, as the most motivating factor. It is followed by ‘chasing your
dreams’ and ‘independent decision making’ as these factors have been chosen by 50 percent
and 52 percent of the respondents respectively. ‘High returns’ and ‘your own confidence and
knowledge’ are next important motivating factors as 43 percent and 42 percent respondents have
chosen respectively. ‘To do something differently’, ‘to do something for society’ and ‘family
support’ are the least chosen factors by the students.
Thus we may conclude that intrinsic factors like being once own boss, chasing dreams and
independence in decision making are the main motivating factors for the students. Similar, find-
ings have been observed in a study conducted on entrepreneurs in India, where following one’s
dreams, being one’s own boss and earning lots of money are found to be the main motivating
factors for entrepreneurs (Mani, 2013)
4.6. RQ6: What Deters the Students to Take
Entrepreneurship as a Career Option?
The students were asked to choose among the factors that deter them to take entrepreneurship
as a career option immediately after their college education. They were free to choose more
than one option. The responses have been presented in Table 14. The data shows that lack of

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International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015 11
experience is the most deterring factor among the students for taking entrepreneurship as 70
percent of the students have chosen this factor. The next important factor is lack of funds as 58
percent of the students have chosen this factor. The third important factor is lack of knowledge,
44 percent of the students have chosen this factor. Subsequently, too much of risk, family re-
sponsibilities and other objectives have been chosen by 29 percent, 19 percent and 17 percent
students respectively. Only 7 percent of the students have chosen ‘not interested’ as their reason
for not going for entrepreneurship.
Thus we may conclude that students consider lack of experience and lack of funds as the most
deterring factors for entering into business immediately after college. This finding is validated
by the findings in Table 2, where 74 percent of the students wish to start their business either
after 5 to 10 years or after 1 to 5 years after college. The students feel that they should first gain
some experience and collect some funds before venturing into business.
Table13.Descriptivestatistics-Question:WhatmotivatesyoutobecomeanEntrepreneur?
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Being your own boss 108 64%
Independent decision making 88 52%
Chasing your dreams 84 50%
High returns 72 43%
Your own confidence and knowledge 70 42%
To do things differently 52 31%
To do something for society 40 24%
Family support 12 7%
Other 2 1%
Table14.Descriptive statistics - Question: What stops you to take Entrepreneurshipasyour
careeroptionimmediatelyaftercollege?
Options No. of Respondents Percentage
Lack of experience 118 70%
Lack of funds 98 58%
Lack of knowledge 74 44%
Too much of risk 48 29%
Family responsibilities 32 19%
Other objectives in life 28 17%
Lucrative job offers 14 8%
Not interested 12 7%
Parent’s don’t want 10 6%
Other 2 1%

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12 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
5. CONCLUSION
This paper is focused to examine the students’ perspective of entrepreneurship education in engi-
neering discipline. The study has been conducted on engineering students who have never taken
any formal entrepreneurship education. Primary data from students has been collected through a
well-designed questionnaire. The data has been analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-tests.
From the data analysis it is found that students are highly interested in starting their own
business and they consider that entrepreneurship is a very important subject and should be
taught in engineering curriculum. They consider that decision making skills, risk taking capac-
ity, creativity, communication skills and ability to prepare business plan are the most important
skills for a successful entrepreneur. They feel motivated to start their own business because of
intrinsic factors like being their own boss, chasing their dreams and independent decision mak-
ing. However, their get deterred to immediately enter into entrepreneurship because they don’t
feel confident enough. Lack of experience and lack of funds are the most deterring factors. Since
the respondents in this case are the students who have never taken any formal entrepreneurship
education, we may suggest that formal entrepreneurship education can instill confidence in the
students to start venture into business. The findings of this study may be highly useful for poli-
cymakers, academicians, teachers of entrepreneurship in shaping the entrepreneurship education
in higher education system. A major limitation of the study is the geographies of primary data
collection. The data has been collected from National Capital Region of India, thus the findings
of the study may not be generalized without further research.
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14 International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 5(1), 1-14, January-June 2015
APPENDIX
Table15.Entrepreneurshipeducationsurvey