Date of Award

Spring 2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Educational Foundations & Leadership

Program/Concentration

Higher Education

Committee Director

Christopher R. Glass

Committee Member

Steve Myran

Committee Member

Karen Eagle

Abstract

This qualitative, interview-based research study explores how undergraduate students at a single research university make meaning of their experiences in curricular and co-curricular university entrepreneurship programming. The study focuses on the developmental relationship between entrepreneurship education and feelings of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) and how feelings of ESE relate to future entrepreneurial intentions. I explore three of Bandura’s (1977) predictors of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, and social persuasion interwoven with the six dimensions of ESE developed by De Noble, Jung, and Ehrlich (1999) to determine how undergraduate students make meaning of their entrepreneurial experiences.

Through the analysis of data collected through semi-structured interviews, the findings of this study shed light on the answer to the important question of how undergraduate students who are developing future entrepreneurial intentions relate to their experiences in university entrepreneurship programming. As De Noble, Jung, and Ehrlich (1999) endorsed the ability of entrepreneurship coursework and training to nurture the self-efficacy among students, the results of this research study can be used to improve or augment the current services provided by Southern Research University or serve as a guide for other colleges that currently have or are looking to create similar programmatic offerings.

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In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/1wcp-a574

ISBN

9781085558860

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