Entrepreneurial characteristics of students in different fields of study: A view from entrepreneurship education perspective

Abstract

The aim of our article is to examine the entrepreneurial characteristics of university students in diff erent disciplines, and to develop implications and recommendations for entrepreneurship education programing according to the observed diff erences. The main research question is to identify whether students from diff erent selected disciplines exhibit diff erent rates of enterprising potential (i.e. tendency to start up and manage projects), and if so, which are the diff erentiating attributes. To answer this question we conducted a study using the General Enterprising Tendency v2 Test (GET2 test) and analysed the enterprising potential of 370 university students in four diff erent majors (business administration, applied informatics, psychology and pedagogy). The findings of our analysis suggest that there are significant diff erences in the general enterprising tendency levels, as well as in levels of three out of five its components (namely need for achievement, calculated risk taking and internal locus of control) between the students in analysed majors. In other words, students in diff erent disciplines exhibit diff erent rates of entrepreneurial predispositions. In our article we present and further discuss these findings, especially from the entrepreneurship education perspective in its broadest sense.