Influence of Entrepreneurial Education and Attitude on Entrepreneurial Intention of Graduating Students in a Nigerian University

This study assessed the influence of entrepreneurial education (EE) and entrepreneurial attitude (EA) on the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of graduating students in a Nigerian university. Through a descriptive quantitative methods, questionnaires were distributed and retrieved from a total of 157 non-probabilistic convenience samples from the final year students across the different faculties of Bayero University, Kano (BUK). To test the proposed hypotheses, the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed. The results showed that EE and EA have strong influence on the EI of the graduating students. Similarly, the measurement model confirmed reliability and validity of all indicators using the convergent and discriminated validity using 5000 bootstrapping algorithm re-sampling technique. The structural model also validated the two hypothesized relationships among the variables of the study. The results have enormous implications to both the academic community and the government.

There are only few studies conducted on EI in Nigeria. It is apparent that there have been relatively few empirical studies of its impact, distinct from that of general education, on perceptions of entrepreneurship and EI (Krueger & Brazeal 1994;Peterman & Kennedy 2003). This study aims to bridge those research gaps. The primary objective of this study is to examine the influence of EE and entrepreneurial attitude (EA) on EI of graduating students in a Nigerian university.

Entrepreneurial intention
Being an essential theme in entrepreneurship, EI proved to be the best predictor of planned behavior (Hong, et al., 2020;Norziani, Mastura & Rosdi, 2015;Nuseir, Basheer & Aljumah, 2020). It comprises the intention and commitment of a person to launch new business venture (Purwana, Suhud & Wibowo, 2018) in an innovative way (Chienwattanasook, Jermsittiparsert & Jarinto, 2019). It therefore involves looking at the desirability and feasibility of a business idea and finds out the important cause of business formation (Massaro, Mas, Garlatti & Paschetto, 2015). According to Kusmintarti, Asdani and Riwajanti, (2017), it is a cognitive representation of actions to be performed by an individual for the purpose of setting up one or more new businesses. Ahmed, Pahi, Mozammel and Mozammel, (2018) add that it can also be seen as how keen or engrossed an individual is in A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org 29 prototypical entrepreneurial activities, or in a period to which a person is committed to starting his own business. EI can also be seen as a mindful condition of the mind that route attention, experience and action toward a precise object (goal) or the path of achieving it.
Whereas, according to Bose and Uddin, (2012) it is the appetite of starting a new business.
Paço, Ferreira, Raposo, Rodrigues and Dinis, (2013) are in the view that appreciating factors responsible for shaping students' intentions to start their own businesses is very important for developing an achievable programs and policies necessary to promote entrepreneurial behavior.

2.2.Entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial intention
Education plays a momentous contribution in widening students' knowledge and skills as well as increasing the possibility of the students to be employed after graduation (Bazkiaei et al., 2020). Researchers considered EE as the most important factor to determine a person's intention to become an entrepreneur (Adu, Boakye, Suleman & Bingab, 2020). It is also regarded as a 'weapon' for living in a modern world. For this reason, some researchers and policy makers placed EE and associated programs on their priority agenda (Adetola, Shamsudin & Minai, 2018).
The main objective of the EE adoption in the university curriculum is to arm the students with the necessary entrepreneurial skills (Adelaja, Umar, Soomiyol, Ahmad, Najeemdeen & Abidemi, 2018) to run a successful business, and to improve their entrepreneurial aptitude (Gubik & Farkas, 2019). When individuals learn about entrepreneurship, they will regard it as a professional option (Ramos, Madeira & Duarte, 2020). In addition to the contribution to knowledge, EE also empowers people with the analytical skills and knowledge of entrepreneurial process enabling them to discover feasible business opportunities, mobilize and organize resources for the actualization of the business and develop strategy to explore the opportunity (Viana, Carvalho & Cândido, 2019

Right entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intention
Esfandiar, Shari, Pratt and Altinay, (2019), said attitude is a "psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." The more positive the attitude toward entrepreneurship is, the more student will be encouraged in venturing into business. Attitude can be seen as an evaluation of an object of thought (Abdul-mohsin, Ahmad & Abdul-Halim, 2015) which shows how an individual mind respond to object and affects the behavior. Relatively, it is an evaluation of cognitive and emotional feelings towards an object (Ruswanti, 2015). Ismail, (2015) said "attitudes and intentions are precursors of entrepreneurial action, an understanding of the attitudes, and those factors which may impact them is a critical step in promoting greater entrepreneurial initiatives." In this context, the attitude towards entrepreneurship is the extent to which an individual has a welcome or unwelcome and good or bad appraisal of the entrepreneurial behavior . Relatively, Kakkonen, (2018) explains that

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EA is about knowing what it means to be an entrepreneur with a tendency towards entrepreneurial behavior or self-employment. The measures of EA include achievement, innovation, personal control, self-esteem, and opportunity recognition (Lindsay, 2005). In most instances, people develop a positive attitude towards something if they will benefit when they do it and vice versa. Thus, students tend to admire entrepreneurship if they expect benefits from it (Kusmintarti, Thoyib, Ashar & Maskie, 2014).
The studies conducted by Abun, Foronda, Agoot, Belandres, and Magallanez (2018) Based on these empirical evidence, the present study posits that: H2: Entrepreneurial attitude has a significant positive influence on entrepreneurial intention.

Methodology
This study is descriptive in nature. Through the use of adopted questionnaires, the data were analyzed to determine the effect of EE and EA on the EI of the graduating students in a Nigerian University.

Research instruments
The study adopted three questionnaires to measure EE, EA and EI of the participants.
The scale of EE measurement was adapted from the study of Njambi (2016)

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The survey was administered by the researchers which was restricted to the final year students of Bayero University, Kano.

Sample design and data collection
In most research situations, it would be excellent to use the entire population but it is

4.1.Data analysis
The Smart PLS version 3 was used to analyze the data collected for this study because it has a concern on data normalcy and sample size as well as accommodating the reflective and formative constructs (Chin, 1998). At the same time, it also evaluates the relationship between the measurement model and the structural model as the two basic steps   Tatham, and Black (1998) suggestions that values of the CR must be above 0.70 to be accepted (see  The study fully conducted all the necessary tests to ensure a fit and satisfactory measurement model as identified above. This is followed by the estimation of the structural model parameters to determine R2, path coefficient, effect size (F2) and model fit using predictive relevance (Q2). In estimating the above criteria, the study utilized the 5000 bootstrapping algorithm resampling technique (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011).

4.2.Structural model
There are four key criteria for assessing the structural model in Smart PLS SEM.
These include assessments of: (1) significance of the path coefficients, (2) coefficient determination (R²), (3) the effect size (f²), and lastly (4) predictive relevance (Q²). The results for the assessment of the significance of path coefficients (Henseler et al., 2015;Ibrahim & Mas'ud, 2016) are presented in Figure 2 and  ). Ibrahim and Shariff (2016) observe that the techniques for assessing mediation are numerous but the most recent approach is the bootstrapping method which generates an empirical representation of the distribution of the sample of the indirect effect. The main advantage of bootstrapping approach is that it does not require any assumptions about the sampling distributions of the indirect effect or its product.
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Figure 2
The structural model The structural model in figure 2 presents a path model with two direct effects EE->EI and EA->EI. Evaluation of the structural path model is presented in table 5. The structural model concerns with creating the link between and among constructs of the study through path coefficient while the R 2 evaluates the explanatory power of the exogenous variables in explaining the endogenous variables (Ibrahim, Mahmood, & Bakar, 2018). This also explains the fundamental relationship that exists between the constructs of the study. The variance (R 2 ) and the path coefficient are the main process in which the hypothesis of the study are justified (Chin, 1998  the Nigerian government and the universities want to enhance graduating students' intention to start their own entrepreneurial undertaking, they should focus on imparting a quality entrepreneurial education to the students. The current study reflects a 34% increase in the number of Nigerian students who will probably venture into a new business after a quality entrepreneurial education which will contribute a lot in staving off the endemic soaring unemployed graduates in Nigeria. EE has been a significant step in the development of the Nigerian university students' entrepreneurship success through their involvement in entrepreneurial activities that increase intention and penchant to start their own business.
Truly, universities are not only established to produce graduates but to provide a degree that enables students to face the challenges in the community and the world, in general. In other words, universities must improve the skills of the graduates through entrepreneurial education.
On the part of the EA and EI, result (β=329; t=5.311; p=0.000) indicated that the more university students develop positive attitude toward entrepreneurship, the more their EI increase by 33 percent. Hence, it supports H2 that EA has a significant positive influence on EI. The result is also congruent with the findings of Law and Breznik (2016), Leng and Buang (2019) and Tung (2011). In order to enhance EI, efforts should mount to inculcate the attitude of entrepreneurship to the Nigerian university students. This positively increases their intention to start their own business venture after graduation and will also contribute in controlling the towering number of unemployed graduates in the country. In addition, the result also proved that students' EA strongly contributes to their EI. Therefore, the focus must be on the entrepreneurial personality development through providing practical and influential course experience such as success stories of business owners. This will eventually embolden their EI in business development and entrepreneurial undertaking after graduation.
The domino effect to taking life opportunities, students will perceive entrepreneurship as a ladder to their goals, aims and objectives which will result to a burning positive attitude and desire towards entrepreneurship.
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In the same vein, entrepreneurship is considered as an engine of economic development which should be at the center of any country's national policy. It is imperative to analyze individual behavior in starting a new business venture (Rodrigues, Marques & Geraldes, 2020). It is becoming clear that through EE, the mindset of the students can be changed to embrace entrepreneurship. Thus, quality EE must be a priority of universities.
Through a linear equation, the EE develops EA to increase EI.

Conclusion and Implication of the study
This study examined the influence of EE and EA on EI of graduating students in a Nigerian university. As the main motivation of the authors to provide solution to the rising number of unemployed graduates in the country, the study provides a quantitative approach to identifying the predictors of EI. Although several studies have been conducted in different countries, the current study fills the gap in Nigeria. This study attempts to increase the understanding of the relationship that exist between EE and EA on the EI of students.
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The findings of this study support all the postulated hypotheses which indicate that developing EI among university students is far beyond just policies and programs. There are also other critical factors such as EE and EA. In particular, the tested positive relationships between EE, EA and EI were all affirmed. The findings of the study also support previous studies that established a positive relationship between EE and EI (Boldureanu, et al., 2020;Silangen & Harapan, 2016;Tung, 2011;Zhang, Duysters & Cloodt, 2014). Similarly, the second hypothesis provided a statistically significant and positive relationship between EA and EI. This is relative to the previous studies (Law & Breznik, 2017;Leng & Buang, 2019;Tung, 2011) in which EA was found to be a key determinant of EI among university students.
The present study has numerous implications to both the academic community and the government. Firstly, the results bring into light the importance of EE and EA as a predictors of students' intention to engage themselves in entrepreneurial activities. Secondly, through the link that EE influences individual EI, it is made clear that entrepreneurs can be made. This is evident through EE wherein developments of entrepreneurial skill, knowledge and talent are apparent. As such, it is imperative for the academic community to develop and update university curriculum including the sound entrepreneurial education and training attuned with the dynamic nature of today's environment and enabled the knowledge sharing to enhance EE and EA. Thirdly, as the results show a cross-sectional effect, a dynamic support system in entrepreneurial development must be looked into. For instance, entrepreneurial development centers would be of great importance to be established either by the federal, state or local governments. This can provide support as well as practical education to students to develop their mindset and attitude toward self-reliance and entrepreneurship. Lastly, the wider implication of the study calls for sustainable stakeholder partnership. Since most of the Nigerian universities are funded by government, collaborations and partnerships between government and universities is the key to ensure success in promoting EE and EA.
Despite the study's contribution to knowledge, there exist some limitations. The data were collected only at Bayero University, Kano during a specific time period with a limited number of samples. Therefore, future researchers should look into the possibility of crossexamination among other universities in different countries. It is also imperative that further A Publication of the Institute of Industry and Academic Research Incorporated www.iiari.org