The Relationships Of Entrepreneurship Education And Entrepreneurial Intentions: The Mediating Role Of Entrepreneurial Self-efficacy

Entrepreneurship can improve economic efficiency, bring market innovation, increaseemployment opportunities and maintain employment levels(Shane, & Venkataraman,2000). Entrepreneurship has become a new trend in employment around the world,and it is an important way to alleviate the pressure on employment. Researchers ofentrepreneurial field believe that the entrepreneurial behavior is not a direct result ofentrepreneurial opportunities or business opportunities, but entrepreneurialintentions(Krueger, 2007). Entrepreneurial intentions refers to the belief thatindividuals plan to start a new company and plan to put it into practice in the futureconsciously(Thompson, 2009), and the entrepreneurial intentions can significantlypredict entrepreneurial behaviors(Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud, 2000). In university, thestudents are in a period of time to prepare for adults, plan their future and determinethe initial goal of adulthood. The entrepreneurial intentions of university students is anecessary condition for them to become entrepreneurs, but the related researches oftheir entrepreneurial intentions or behaviors is rare. In recent years, in order topromote entrepreneurship, universities engaged in entrepreneurship education.Developing the students’skills gradually become the main concern of highereducation. But compared with developed countries, China’s entrepreneurshipeducation is still in its infancy, facing a lot of confusion.Overall, the research on entrepreneurial intentions and entrepreneurship education ofcollege students is still in the exploratory stage. To examine the characteristics ofentrepreneurial intention and entrepreneurship education and the mechanism ofentrepreneurship education has an important significance for the promotion of venture.On the basis of studies before, this research recruited 1017 college students andinvestigated the characteristics and relationships of entrepreneurship education andentrepreneurial intentions. Conclusions drawn in this thesis are as follows:1. There are significant gender differences in entrepreneurial intentions. Theentrepreneurial goal intentions and entrepreneurial implementation intentions ofboys is higher than girls’. There are significant major differences inentrepreneurial goal intentions, and the intentions of management professionalstudents is significantly higher than those of technical and liberal arts majors.2. There are significant gender differences, grade differences and major differencesin Entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship education of boys is better thangirls’. Entrepreneurship education for freshmen is better than for the other threegrades, and senior grade is better than the sophomore and junior. Entrepreneurshipeducation for management professional students is significantly better thantechnical and liberal arts majors.3. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy can partly mediate the relationship betweenentrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial goal intentions and entrepreneurialimplementation intentions.4. Gender can moderate the relationship of Entrepreneurial self-efficacy andentrepreneurial goal intentions, but cannot moderate the relationship ofentrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial implementation Intentions.5. The mediating effect of entrepreneurial self-efficacy between entrepreneurshipeducation and entrepreneurial goal intentions is moderated by gender.