Entrepreneurial Education at University Level and Entrepreneurship Development

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on effectiveness of entrepreneurship education by empirically assessing the role of university entrepreneurial education in entrepreneurship development and reporting the results. Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative method was applied for this study. This research was preplanned and structured. Based on the previous literature, hypotheses have been developed. The sample is composed on the basis of a simple random sampling and consists of 200 students. The method of data collection was face-to-face interview with a self-administered questionnaire. The data were statistically interpreted using factor and regression analysis. Findings: The present paper explores and examines the factors and variables of different kinds of entrepreneurial education at the university level. Specifically, at first, this paper addresses the possible entrepreneurial education factors in terms of generalized, motivational, and augmented entrepreneurial education via comprehensive literature review. Second, the paper focuses on the relationship between entrepreneurial education at the university level and entrepreneurship development. The results of this study show a strong positive relationship between different kinds of entrepreneurial education on entrepreneurship development. Practical implications: The implications of these findings are highly relevant to the universities, policy makers, practitioners, and relevant agencies in regard to their policy-setting process in the entrepreneurship development context. This is because entrepreneurship education at the university level has been recognized to have an impact on student, group, and society. This finding also improves the understanding of donors and development partners about the extent to which a quality entrepreneurship education can play a role in economic development. Wrong specification of research models has a significant impact on research outcome and may even mislead decision-setting process. Therefore, this paper encourages further research that examines the measurement model of these three kinds of entrepreneurial education for entrepreneurship development. Originality/value: This study provides a first step toward generalized, motivational, and augmented entrepreneurial education at the university level in Bangladesh.