ATTITUDE AND GENDER AS PREDICTORS OF SELF-EMPLOYMENT INTENTIONS OF UNDERGRADUATE ECONOMICS STUDENTS IN SELECTED PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN OSUN STATE
Abstract
Unemployment situation in Nigeria has worsened in recent times as many university graduates roam the streets without any employment. Different government interventions aimed at creating employment opportunities have not significantly improve the situation. The newly introduced entrepreneurship education by the National Universities Commission (NUC) has been applauded by different stakeholders, but the cognitive knowledge of entrepreneurship has not been translated into job creation by graduates. This study thus, aimed at identifying sundry factors that influence self-employment intentions of undergraduate Economics students in four private universities in Osun State. The research applies a regressional research design involving 122 final year students who were randomly chosen from four private universities. Two instruments used were: Students’ Attitude Towards entrepreneurship Scale (SATES) and Self-Employment Intention Questionnaire (SIQ). Three research questions were raised and answered and the data obtained were analysed using linear regression and Pearson product moment correlation. The results show that, there was a positive moderate relationship between attitude and self-employment intention with R = 526, gender and self-employment intention had a significant relationship with R= 535 and male being the most influential predictive variable. The combination of the two independent variables had a significant positive relationship. From the findings of this study, it was observed that there is a positive but moderated relationship among, attitude, gender and students’ self-employment intention. Therefore, it was concluded that, there is a great possibility of having some graduates who will want to pursue self-employment as a career option if the conducive environment is provided through government policies and actions.
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