FACTORS AFFECTING ON ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTION OF FEMALE STUDENTS IN TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION SECTOR

Abstract

In the dynamic world, there is a diversity in societies with varied cultures and standards which resulted women employee in different sectors such as medicine, technical, accountancy, general management, administration and plenty of secretary positions. This doesn’t imply that women don’t have the intention to become an entrepreneur, but have constrained with several matters. Hence there is a need to study the most influencing factors/ indicators on entrepreneurial intention in females. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between selected dimensions (Psychological factors; personal factors; economic factors; social factors and political factors) and entrepreneurial intention and on identifying most influencing indicators on entrepreneurial intention of female students in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) Sector, Sri Lanka. The sample selected based on simple random sampling method from the female students currently studying in TVET education centers in Sri Lanka. Two hundred structured questionnaires distributed among the population and preliminary study conducted by selecting twenty respondents. In order to fulfill the objective of the study correlation and regression analysis methods used for data analysis. The entrepreneurial intention of the respondents was low according to the preliminary study. The results indicate that all the selected dimensions positively correlate with the entrepreneurial intention of female students. Moreover, psychological factors and personal factors resulted as most influencing factors respectively. The study recommended that entrepreneurial education should improve in the TVET sector, Sri Lanka as well educate them with positive impacts of entrepreneurship to improve entrepreneurial intention and for the betterment of the country. Further research studies should address and assess most expertise entrepreneurial skills of the females in the TVET sector. Moreover, this study made suggestions to educators and students in the TVET sector, government and other relevant authorities.