The Impact of Entrepreneurship Education and Its Benefits on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Agricultural Students in West Iran Universities

Entrepreneurship education is a fast growing area and a hot topic in colleges and universities all around the world, and its supposed benefits have been much praised by researchers and educators; nevertheless, the outcomes and effectiveness of entrepreneurship education programs have remained largely untested. Building on the theory of planned behavior, an ex-ante and ex-post survey was used to assess the impact of entrepreneurship education programs on students’ entrepreneurial intentions and also to explore the benefits of these programs. Data were collected by a questionnaire from a sample of 109 participants in entrepreneurship courses at four universities (Bu-Ali Sina, Kordestan, Shahrekord, Ilam). Entrepreneurship education had significant positive impacts on motivational factors (i.e., subjective norms, attitudes and perceived behavioral control) and students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Moreover, from the three entrepreneurship education-related benefits (i.e., learning, inspiration and resources) learning proved to be associated with the increase in perceived behavioral control, entrepreneurial attitudes intentions. In total, this study shows the theory of planned behavior can provide a useful framework to assess the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education.