Abstract

SANDOVAL CARAVEO, María del Carmen; SURDEZ PEREZ, Edith Georgina  and  PEREZ SANDOVAL, Abraham Gerardo. Capacity Level for Entrepreneurship in Engineering and Architecture Students of a Public University in Southeastern Mexico. RIDE. Rev. Iberoam. Investig. Desarro. Educ [online]. 2020, vol.11, n.21, e038.  Epub Mar 09, 2021. ISSN 2007-7467.  https://doi.org/10.23913/ride.v11i21.757.

Because it has a key role in the creation of enterprises and jobs, entrepreneurship is an activity deeply related to economic growth. That is why, in the last couple of years, higher education institutions have introduced this subject in their academic programmes. The aim of this investigation was to establish the level of entrepreneurship in engineering and architecture students of a public university in Mexico. The method used was a quantitative approach of the descriptive type with a non-experimental, transversal and correlational design. The participating population consisted of 3227 students enrolled in either Electric Mechanic Engineering, Civil Engineering, Electric and Electronic Engineering, Chemical Engineering or Architecture. The sample of 343 students was obtained through a simple random sampling method. A factorial confirmatory analysis was applied to the instrument through the SPSS Amos program, which proved to be a sustainable model to measure a three-factor construct: personal, resources and social. The Cronbach’s alpha test presented a reliability of α = 0.868. The results showed that 26 % of the students consider no to have the ability to be entrepreneurs and that 23 % have little ability. The descriptive statistic revealed that the abilities are not well defined in any of the analyzed factors. Bonferroni´s post hoc analysis demonstrated the significant differences when comparing the abilities between the students of these academic programmes. Students of Electric Mechanic Engineering have more potential to be entrepreneurs, as well as students in sixth and seventh semester and those in the 23 to 24-year-old range. No significant differences were found among men and women nor do important correlation with age, semester and grades. Therefore, it is concluded that it is necessary to design strategies to contribute to strengthen the, not well determined, abilities to be entrepreneurs on the subjects of this study.

Keywords : entrepreneur; business; engineering; university.