Gender differences in entrepreneurial self-efficacy: An educational perspective

Abstract

Entrepreneurial education is believed to be positively correlated with entrepreneurship intentions. Previous studies measured entrepreneurial self-efficacy in order to investigate observed gender differences in entrepreneurial activity. Unlike these studies that were interested in studying entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a predictor of behavior, this study aims at measuring entrepreneurial self-efficacy as an educational assessment tool. This study uses data collected from four private universities in order to assess whether there are gender differences in the observed impact of entrepreneurial education. Results indicate that the entrepreneurial self-efficacy of both male and female students is significantly correlated with having taken an entrepreneurship course. Gender differences exist in terms of the specific subdomains of the scale, but these differences are small.