The Impact of Entrepreneurial Education on Entrepreneurial Intention: A Quantitative Study of Moroccan Students

Abstract

This study examines the mechanisms that influence a student's decision to consider starting a business in a changing academic and socio-economic context. Using a conceptual research model based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and a quantitative approach, this study aims to answer the following research question: "To what extent do individual, social, family and academic factors influence the entrepreneurial intention of Moroccan students?" It also aims to provide a basis for further studies in entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial intention by offering answers to the main question of how, when and why students develop entrepreneurial intention. Because entrepreneurial intention can be observed, modelled, and tested objectively, positivism was adopted as the epistemological framework. Guided by deductive reasoning, precise hypotheses were formulated regarding the influence of variables such as entrepreneurial attitude, perceived desirability, self-efficacy, family model, social norms, and entrepreneurial education on the intention to start a business. These hypotheses were then empirically tested through a questionnaire survey and statistical modelling (PLS-SEM). With 498 students in the sample, various statistical analyses were used to determine correlations, comparisons and dependencies among the model variables. The data were then analysed using descriptive analyses, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Based on these results, the structural model is considered "very satisfactory," as the coefficients of determination (R²) exceed 0.5 for all endogenous variables. As a result, the hypothesis analysis strongly supports the influence of individual, psychosocial, and family factors on entrepreneurial intention. Attitude toward entrepreneurship emerges as a major predictor (p < 0.05), thus validating the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991). This attitude also acts indirectly through perceived desirability, which is itself highly correlated with entrepreneurial intention. Nevertheless, the conceptual research model is appropriate, and some of the factors studied do influence entrepreneurial intentions; however, no higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions or entrepreneurial competencies were found among students involved in entrepreneurship education.