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University Students' Year Level, Gender, and Entrepreneurial Attitude

Orientation: The Case of Management and Entrepreneurship Students of a
Philippine Higher Education Institution

Conference Paper · November 2015

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The 2nd Management Innovation Technology International Conference (MITiCON2015)

University Students’ Year Level, Gender, and

Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation: The Case of
Management and Entrepreneurship Students
of a Philippine Higher Education Institution

Jean Paolo G. Lacap

Management and Entrepreneurship Department
Angeles University Foundation
Mac Arthur Highway, 2009 Angeles City, Philippines
jeanpao13@yahoo.com

Abstract— The research undertaking aims to identify the
entrepreneurial attitude orientation (EAO) of university students
as they are related to respondents’ year level and gender. It has
two (2) fold objectives: (1) to recognize the significant difference
of the respondents’ EAO scores according to their year level and
(2) to identify the significant difference of the respondents’ EAO
scores according to their gender. The participants of the study
were selected using stratified random sampling and descriptive
and causal researches were employed in the undertaking. Using
ANOVA and Scheffe’s test, the findings revealed that there is a
significant difference in the respondents’ EAO scores according
to their year level. On one hand, using Levene’s T-test, the
undertaking showed a significant difference in the respondents’
EAO scores according to their gender. The implications of the
study include the recommendation that entrepreneurship
education in the tertiary level be more emphasized at the
beginning of the year level of university students. Moreover,
female university students should be given more entrepreneurial
opportunities and be encouraged to be more enterprising..
Keywords— entrepreneurial attitude orientation, innovation,
achievement, personal control, self-esteem, entrepreneurial
mindset, gender, year level
I. INTRODUCTION
The rate of unemployment in the Philippines in January
2015 registered 6.6% as compared to 7.5% in January 2014 [1].
On one hand, the poverty incidence in the Philippines based on
the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) increased to
25.8% in the first half of 2014 from 24.6% in 2013’s first half
and the worst part is, the Philippines will not able to achieve its
millennium development goal (MDG) of halving its poverty
incidence for 2015 [2]. With all these figures, different non-
government organizations and even the academe promote
entrepreneurship as a fundamental tool to solve two economic
problems – unemployment and poverty. They see
entrepreneurship as a key vehicle to promote economic
prosperity and development.
Entrepreneurship is seen as a great mechanism to empower
those people living in poverty. It is a tool to improve
production and a primary requirement to innovation. It is also
recognized in the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines as an
engine of economic growth [3]. It is a way in which business
ideas are being put into practice thus it creates job
opportunities that trigger personal development [4].
Several studies showed that entrepreneurship has positive
impact on improving people’s lives and promotion of economic
growth [5],[6],[7]. The are several campaigns both from the
private and public sectors on the emphasis on the importance of
entrepreneurship, thus it is an imperative to come up with a
study that measures the entrepreneurial attitude orientation
(EAO) of the people particularly of the university students.
Considering entrepreneurship as a vehicle to achieve higher
standard of living and quality of life, it is necessary to come up
with a timely undertaking that will add to the body of
knowledge in the field of entrepreneurship. The researcher
primarily identified the significant difference of the university
students’ EAO scores according to their year level and the
significant difference of the university students’ EAO scores
according to their gender.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Several literatures both local and international suggest that
entrepreneurship is a tool for economic prosperity.
Entrepreneurship has been regarded to impact the society and
the economy in general because it creates employment, it can
augment human quality of life, it uses resources to increase
productivity in one nation, and it provides the government
resources through taxes. With this, it is vital to measure the
entrepreneurial attitude orientation of university students to
scrutinize their potential to come up with business ideas and
execute or implement it in the Philippines. One of the most
common measures to gauge one’s attitude or mindset towards
business activities is the Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation
(EAO) Survey. The EAO Survey is a 21-item survey

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The 2nd Management Innovation Technology International Conference (MITiCON2015)
questionnaire that gauge the four attitudes of an entrepreneur
namely innovation, achievement, personal control, and self-
esteem [8].
Entrepreneurial attitude refers to the perceptions of
individuals toward entrepreneurship in terms of value, benefit,
and favorability which has an impact on their intention for new
venture creation [9]. Innovation on one hand refers to the
creativity in business activities. Moreover, achievement is the
desire of an individual to achieve concrete results in the
business venture. Furthermore, personal control is the
individual’s desire to have personal control over his/her
business activities. Lastly, self-esteem is the strong sense of
self-worth of an individual [8]. Fundamentally, the EAO
Survey was designed to measure entrepreneurial mindset.
There are several studies and researches done by different
authors when it comes to entrepreneurial attitude orientation.
One of the recent undertakings examined the level of Chinese
corporate entrepreneurship and explored the network
capabilities (NC) impact on entrepreneurial orientation (EO)
and business performance. The study revealed that EO has a
direct impact on business performance and NC moderates the
relationship between EO and business performance [10].
Another study investigated EO effects on the survival of the
firm and explored whether chief executive officers (CEO) were
more effective as compared with other managerial types
through EO utilization at initial public offerings (IPOs). The
result suggested that EO increases the post-IPO survival of the
firm and CEOs moderated EO-survival relationship [11].
Other scholars examined the EO of Indian entrepreneurs in
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The results revealed
that there is an association between the gender and the level of
entrepreneurial attitudes and at the same time, male
entrepreneurs have higher EAO scores compared to females
[12]. Moreover, another study revealed that gender acts as a
weak determinant of students’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy and
students’ gender has insignificant associations with EAO [13].
On the other hand, other researchers analyzed the EAO of
Indian Air Force trainees. The study showed that a significant
difference exists between respondents’ gender on achievement
scale while no significant differences were found on
respondents’ gender in terms of innovation, personal control,
and self-esteem scales [14].
There were several studies conducted on university
students’ entrepreneurial orientation. One of these researches
explored gender differences in attitudes of university students
towards entrepreneurship. The findings magnified that females
are less willing to start their own enterprises as compared to
male students. It further affirmed that significant gender
differences exist in terms of students’ perceived feasibility and
perceived desirability. With regard to entrepreneurial intention,
fewer gender differences exist among university students [15].
Moreover there are some scholars who evaluated the
entrepreneurial intentions of female university students and
compared them to males. The results showed that male students
show more positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship and
much more concrete in terms of entrepreneurial intentions [16].
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Other researchers focused on the application of the EAO
model on academic set up. One study examined the EAO and
entrepreneurial self-efficacy of secondary school Malay
students and the finding divulged that Malay students have
moderately high attitude towards entrepreneurship. Moreover,
the respondents achieved high in both self-esteem and
achievement cognitions but low self-esteem behavior and self-
esteem affect [17]. Other researchers compared the EAO of
university and community college students in the United
States. The results revealed that university students have high
degree of achievement, innovation, personal control, and self-
esteem as compared to community college peers. They further
asserted that university students have high tendency to start up
their own venture than those community college students [18].
III. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH PARADIGM
A. Research Objectives and Null Hypotheses
The study has two main objectives. One is to recognize the
significant difference of the respondents’ EAO scores
according to their year level and second, to identify the
significant difference of the respondents’ EAO scores
according to their gender. The two (2) research questions
include:
1. Is there a significant difference in the respondents’
EAO scores according to their year level?
2. Is there a significant difference in the respondents’
EAO scores according to their gender?
From the stated research questions, the null hypotheses of
the undertaking were:
H1: There is no significant difference in the respondents’
EAO scores according to their year level.
H2: There is no significant difference in the respondents’
EAO scores according to their gender.
B. Research Paradigm
Fig. 1 shows the paradigm of the undertaking. In the study,
the EAO model [8] was applied to assess the entrepreneurial
potentials of Management and Entrepreneurship students of
one higher education institution in Angeles City, Philippines.
The university students’ attitude and mindset was analyzed
using the four attitude factors namely: innovation,
achievement, personal control, and self-esteem. The research
paradigm also reflects the totality of the study showing the two
(2) null hypotheses of the undertaking represented by H1and
H2.
Fig.1. Paradigm of the Study
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The 2nd Management Innovation Technology International Conference (MITiCON2015)

IV. REASEARCH METHOD

A descriptive research was utilized to measure the
entrepreneurial attitude orientation (EAO) of the participants
under study. In this type of research, the researcher wants to
TABLE II. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE EAO AVERAGE SCORES OF
come up with a snapshot of the participants’ attitude toward THE RESPONDENTS ACCORDING TO YEAR LEVEL
entrepreneurship. At the same time, causal research was also
employed to gauge the significant differences of the identified 95% Confidence
Interval for
variables of the undertaking. Year Std. Std.
Mean
N Mean Min Max
Level Dev. Error
Lower Upper
A. Participants of the Study Bound Bound
The participants of the study were selected Bachelor of 1St 36 7.14 1.30 0.22 6.70 7.58 3.78 9.68
2nd 47 7.29 1.13 0.16 6.96 7.62 4.62 9.15
Science in Business Administration Major in Management and 3rd 52 7.75 0.96 0.13 7.49 8.02 5.08 9.60
Entrepreneurship (BSBA M&E) students of a higher education 4th 43 7.90 0.75 0.11 7.67 8.13 6.03 9.33
institution in Angeles City, Philippines enrolled in the first Total 178 7.54 1.07 0.08 7.38 7.70 3.78 9.68
semester , academic year 2014 – 2015. The said program
(BSBA M&E) is a four-year curricular course offered to
college students. There were 178 participants (4th Year = 43; Table 3 reveals the multiple comparisons of the EAO
3rd Year = 52; 2nd Year = 47; and 1st Year = 36) in the average scores of the respondents according to year level. The
undertaking under study. A stratified sampling was used in multiple comparisons table using Scheffe’s test indicates that
order to guarantee that each year level of the total population there is a significant difference between the means of the
was represented. freshmen and the seniors. In other words, EAO average score
of the seniors is statistically significant than of the freshmen.
B. Measure
TABLE III. MULTIPLE COMPARISONS OF EAO AVERAGE SCORES OF THE
To measure the entrepreneurial attitude of the participants, RESPONDENTS ACCORDING TO YEAR LEVEL
a 5-point Likert scale for each measure was used. The EAO 95%
model was used in the study and the participants were Year Year Mean
Std.
Confidence
measured in four dimensions of entrepreneurial mindset Level Level Diff. Sig. Interval
Error
(I) (J) (I-J) Lower Upper
namely: innovation, achievement, personal control, and self- Bound Bound
esteem [8]. Other factors of entrepreneurial attitudes were not
2nd -0.15 0.23 0.939 -0.794 0.501
included in the undertaking.
st rd
1 3 -0.61 0.22 0.065 -1.243 0.025
The first null hypothesis was tested using ANOVA and th
4
Scheffe’s test while the second null hypothesis was measured -0.75* 0.23 0.018 -1.415 -0.093
using independent t-test. 1 st
0.15 0.23 0.939 -0.501 0.794
2nd 3rd -0.46 0.21 0.182 -1.051 0.126
V. RESULTS
4th
Table 1 presents the ANOVA of EAO Average Scores of -0.61 0.22 0.056 -1.225 0.010
the respondents. With an F (3,174) =5.481 and a p=0.002, a 1st 0.61 0.22 0.065 -0.025 1.243
value lower than the 0.05 significance level, there is a
3rd 2nd
significant difference in the respondents’ EAO scores 0.46 0.21 0.182 -0.126 1.051
according to their year level. 4th -0.14 0.21 0.928 -0.748 0.458
st
1 0.75* 0.23 0.018 0.093 1.415
TABLE I. ANOVA OF EAO AVERAGE SCORES 4th nd
2 0.61 0.22 0.056 -0.010 1.225
Sum of Mean
dF F Sig.
Squares Square 3rd .014 0.21 0.928 -0.458 0.748
Between Groups 16.443 3 5.481 5.106 0.002 *The mean difference is significant at 0.05 level
Within Groups 186.790 174 1.074
Total 203.233 177 Table 4 exhibits the descriptive statistics of the EAO
average scores of the respondents according to gender. The
Table 2 manifests the descriptive statistics of the EAO mean and standard deviation of the EAO score of the male
average scores of the respondents according to their year level. participants registered 7.8422±0.92088 while females had
The seniors (4th year M&E students) magnified the highest 7.3499±1.11939.
mean, followed by the juniors (3rd year M&E students),
sophomores (2nd year M&E students), and freshmen (1st year TABLE IV. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE EAO SCORES OF THE
M&E students). RESPONDENTS ACCORDING TO GENDER
Std.
Gender N Mean Std. Dev.
Error

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The 2nd Management Innovation Technology International Conference (MITiCON2015)

Mean another in a span of one academic year, thus age goes with the
EAO Male 69 7.8422 0.92088 0.11086 exposure to entrepreneurship.
Ave.
Scores Female 109 7.3499 1.11939 0.10722 The study also revealed that there is a significant difference
in the respondents’ EAO scores according to gender and
previous studies support this finding [12],[13]. Conversely,
Table 5 indicates the Levene’s T-test results of the average
another study showed significant difference exists in
EAO scores of the respondents according to gender. The T-test
respondents’ gender on achievement measure while no
shows that with t (176) = 3.056 whose p value = 0.003, which
significant differences were noted on respondents’ gender in
is lower than 0.05 significance level, there is a statistical
terms of innovation, personal control, and self-esteem scales
significance between the mean EAO scores of the male
[14].
respondents compared with the females. In other words, the
mean EAO score of the males is statistically higher than that of The results further showed that mean EAO scores of male
the females. respondents (=7.8422) is statistically higher than of females
(=7.3499). This outcome can be attributed to various factors.
TABLE V. LEVENE’S T-TEST RESULTS OF THE AVERAGE EAO SCORES For instance, female students have less willingness to start
OF THE RESPONDENTS ACCORDING TO GENDER their own enterprises and there are significant differences in
Sig. (2- gender in terms of perceived feasibility and perceived
F Sig. t df desirability reflecting females are less-confident, more tense,
tailed)
Equal and reluctant about entrepreneurship [15]. Furthermore,
var. 1.839 1.77 3.056 176 0.003 university male students have more positive attitudes towards
EAO
assumed
Ave.
Equal
entrepreneurship and have more concrete entrepreneurial
Scores intentions as compared to females [16].
var. not 3.192 164.23 0.002
assumed
Std. 95% Confidence Interval of VII. CONCLUSIONS
Mean
Error the Diff.
Diff.
Diff. Lower Upper
The research study concludes that significance difference
Equal exists in the EAO scores of the respondents when they are
var. 0.49 0.16 0.17437 0.81023 grouped according to their year level. As the university
EAO
assumed students move from one year level to next, their EAO scores
Ave.
Equal also increases signifying snowballing attitude toward
Scores
var. not 0.49 0.15 0.18778 0.79682
assumed entrepreneurship. Furthermore, significant difference also
exists in the EAO scores of the respondents when they are
From the results of the ANOVA, Scheffe’s test, and grouped according to gender. The attitude of male university
Levene’s T-test, the first null hypothesis, H1: there is no students toward entrepreneurship is higher as compared to
significant difference in the respondents’ EAO scores female university students. This means that male respondents
according to their year level is rejected. Likewise, the second are more entrepreneurial in nature as compared to females as
null hypothesis H2: there is no significant difference in the manifested in the results of the study.
respondents’ EAO scores according to their gender is also VIII. RECOMMENDATIONS
rejected.
The study showed significant differences in university
VI. DISCUSSIONS students’ EAO scores in terms of their year level and gender.
The undertaking confirmed that there is a significant Fig. 2 reflects the recommendations of the researcher based on
difference in the respondents’ EAO scores according to their the results of the undertaking. The findings of the undertaking
year level. Specifically, the mean score of senior students were can impact the level of entrepreneurship education in higher
statistically significant than of the freshmen. It was evident education institutions (HEIs) specifically in the Philippines.
with the result that, as the year level of students increases, their Since there is significant differences in the respondents’ EAO
mean EAO scores also increases (Freshmen=7.1420; scores in terms of their year level, entrepreneurship education
Sophomores=7.2884; Juniors=7.7512; and Seniors=7.8959). in tertiary level should be emphasized from the beginning of
This can be attributed to the fact that, freshmen business their year level (1st year) until the end of their course. The
students typically have less management, business, and/or proper distribution of entrepreneurship and business subjects
entrepreneurship subjects as compared with seniors. Since they in the curriculum must be spread throughout the program in
have less major subjects, their entrepreneurial mindsets are not order for each student to experience progression in their
as vivid as other upper year level students. chosen course. This can motivate students to be more
Upper level students are considered to be more exposed to enterprising and may augment their level of entrepreneurial
more management, business, and/or entrepreneurship subjects attitude.
thus their EAO were higher. To thoroughly scrutinize the
result, the findings can be deduced from the age of the students.
Normally, as university students move from one level to

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The 2nd Management Innovation Technology International Conference (MITiCON2015)
Fig.2. Business Model to Increase EAO of University Students
Additionally, the significant difference in respondents’
EAO scores in terms of their gender should also be taken into
account. The study revealed that male university students have
higher EAO scores compared to females. This gap should be
addressed in such that females should be given more
opportunities to explore the world of entrepreneurship. Female
university students should be encouraged to participate in
entrepreneurial activities and empower them to be more
enterprising. There is high number of successful female
entrepreneurs not only in the Philippines but also in other parts
of the world. Thus, female university students should be
exposed with the success stories of these female entrepreneurs
so that they will be able to inculcate the value of
entrepreneurship. Higher education institutions may also
include mentorship in women entrepreneurship to encourage
more participation on entrepreneurial activities from female
university students. Opening the doors for more
entrepreneurial undertaking may impact the entrepreneurial
orientations of the students. On one hand, male university
students must be given continuous activities for
entrepreneurial activities in order to augment their level of
entrepreneurial attitude orientation.
In totality, the research presents a new way of analyzing the
entrepreneurial attitude orientation of business students and
the entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions
in the Philippines. On the other hand, further research can be
done in the future so that other variables can be gauged. Other
researchers may include variables such as respondents’
personality, family background, income level and the like.
They may also study cross-country EAO in order to compare
and contrast the level of entrepreneurial attitudes of university
students.
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