Perception of Business Education Students on Entrepreneurial Intention and Skill Acquisition for Human Capital Development in Rivers State Universities

Abstract

The study examined perception of Business Education students on entrepreneurial intentions and skill acquisition for human capital development in Rivers State universities. The study adopted a descriptive survey design, two (2) research questions were posed to guide the study and two (2) null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of the study consisted of the 664 final year Business Education students in Rivers State University and Ignatius Ajuru University of Education for the 2019/2020 academic session. Taro Yemene formula was used to determine a sample size of 288 respondents from the study population. The instrument for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire designed on a 4-point rating scale. Cronbach Alpha reliability co-efficient method was used for reliability test which yielded reliability co-efficient of 0.87. Mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the research questions while z-test was used to test the hypotheses. Findings from the study showed that entrepreneurship skill acquisition and entrepreneurial intention enhance students’ ability to apply practical sense, try new things, practice new ideas, learn by good ideas, enhance ability to apply leadership skill and creative skills for human capital development. Based on the findings, conclusion was made and recommendations made amongst others includes that government should provide adequate funding to enhance entrepreneurial skills acquisition in Rivers State universities and that lecturers teaching entrepreneurship education programme should adopt a more practical skills approach in teaching entrepreneurship education course in universities.