Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2014, 2, 122-126
Published Online September 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/jss
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.29021
How to cite this paper: Chou, C.-M., Shen, C.-H., Chang , H.-T. and Cheng, C.-Y. (2014) Tertiary Students’ Socialization of En-
trepreneurial Behavior. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2, 122-126. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.29021
Tertiary Students’ Socialization of
Entrepreneurial Behavior
Chun-Mei Chou1*, Chien-Hua Shen2, His-Chi Hsiao3, Su-Chang Chen4, Hui-Tzu Chang5,
Jing-Yi Chen6
1Institute of Vocational and Technological Education, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology,
Yunlin, Taiwan
2Department of Business Administration, Transworld Institute of Technology, Yunlin, Taiwan
3Department of Business Administration, Cheng Shin University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
4Department of Marketing and Logistics and Management, National Penghu University of Science and
Technology, Taiwan
5Institute of Education, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
6Department of Information Management, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Received May 2014
Abstract
This study examines 674 tertiary education students’ socialization of entrepreneurial behavior
and its influencing factors. The results show that students’ internship experience (IE) has a signif-
icant direct effect on socialization of entrepreneurial behaviors (SEB), and entrepreneurial self-
efficacy (ESE) has a significant effect on SEB through IE. The influence pattern and empirical data
of ESE and IE on SEB has a good fit.
Keywords
Internship Experience, Socialization of Entrepreneurial Behaviors, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy
1. Introduction
Entrepreneurial education plays the role of helping to reduce the unemployment rate in a country [1] [2]. Some
research found that students’ experiences in entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial self-efficacy have
provided them with chances to learn new entrepreneurial skills, which may be helpful for their future entrepre-
neurial endeavours [1] [3] [4]. Enterprise educational learning could influence the perceived desirability of
starting a business [5] [6].
Research found that entrepreneurial education can be a powerful instrument towards achieving business ex-
cellence [7] [8]. It should be the hub of activities, bringing together and matching various disciplines in every
combination possible. The number of colleges and universities that offer courses related to entrepreneurship has
grown. In the midst of this huge expansion the challenge remains for complete academic training for entrepre-
neurship. While it can be argued that some success has been attained in the current state of entrepreneurial edu-
cation, critical challenges lie ahead [9] [10]. Obschonka et al. provided empirical evidence regarding the expo-
*
Corresponding author.

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123
sure to entrepreneurial education as an additional exposure variable in entrepreneurial intentions [11].
Some research found students’ socialization of entrepreneurial behaviour, internship experience and entre-
preneurial self-efficacy have provided them with chances to learn new entrepreneurship skills, which may be
helpful for their future employability and entre pren eurial skills [12]-[14].
From a socialization theory point of view, the entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) becoming socialization of
entrepreneurial behaviours (SEB) has been depicted as actively entrepreneurial ambition [9] [10] [15]. The
availability of a validated instrument to measure internship norm, internship attitude and entrepreneurial inten-
tion towards SEB could be of much help [11] [12] [16].
Internship experience was defined as the attitude towards internship attitude of internship goal, external em-
ployability and labor market characteristics [8] [9]. Therefore, high IE of students has actually indicates towards
high self-perceived entrepreneurial behavior and learning effect [17]-[19]. Socialization of entrepreneurial beha-
viors and given feedback from the employability learning results in which entrepreneurial intention is raised.
Research suggests that entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) is important to affect socialization of entrepreneurial
behavior [10] [14] [20]. It is positively related to students’ internship norms, internship attitude and entrepre-
neurial intention. It is suggested that the concept of internship experience, derived from socialization theory
plays an important role in the development of IE and SEB [15] [16] [21] [22].
The paper, Analysis of factors in tertiary education students’ perceived ESE and SEB, using IE as a mediator
variable, discussed the variables which may influence tertiary education student’s ECI and found the relation-
ships among the variables. The purposes of this study are to address the 4 following issues.
1. There is no significant correlation between tertiary education students’ ESE and SEB.
2. There is no significant correlation between tertiary education students’ perceived ESE and IE.
3. There is no significant correlation between tertiary education students ’ IE and SEB .
4. Influence models of tertiary education students’ ESE , IE, and SEB fit the data collected by this study.
2. Methodology
2.1. Subjects
This study treats 674 tertiary education students from tertiary education schools as the population, and adopts
random sampling and cluster sampling for survey.
2.2. Research Tools
The research tool is a “Questionnaire of Factors Which Influence Tertiary Education Students’ Socialization of
Entrepreneurial Behavior”. The questionnaire includes Internship experience Scale, Entrepreneurial self-efficacy
Scale and Socialization of entrepreneurial behavior Scale [4] [15] [16] [20]. The “Questionnaire of Factors
Which Influence Tertiary Edu ca tion Students” SEB was reviewed by three experts for subject contents’ suitabil-
ity to ensure the scale’s expert validation. Five tertiary education students were invited to answer the question-
naire to enhance the validity of the scale’s contents. In addition, s ix tertiary education schools were selected for
a pre-test, and 122 students were selected as the pre-test objects in total. The scales used in this study are in
self-assessment form, and a Likert 5-point scale is used as the scoring method. There are five levels of choices
from “agree” to “do not agree”; five equal portions of 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 are distinguished according to the extent of
agreement, and 5 points, 4 points, 3 points, 2 points and 1 point are given in this order. The higher the score an
individual receives, the larger extent of agreement the individual has. The scales’ factors, number of questions
reliability and validity are shown in Table 1.
2.3. Data Analysis
In processing the survey data used in this study, the collected questionnaires were coded, and Statistical Package
for Social Science (SPSS version 12.0) and linear structural analysis (LISREL version 8.5) were used to verify
the correlation among the factors of IE, ESE and SEB variables and their effects in order to achieve the purpose
of this study.
3. Results
The empirical results of tertiary education students’ SEB are shown in Figure 1, and are analyzed as follows:

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Table 1. An overview of factors, number of questions, reliability and validity for tertiary education students’ IE, ESE and
SEB scale.
Entrepreneurial self-efficacy Scale (ESE) Internship experience Scale (IE) Socialization of entrepreneurial behavior
Scale (SEB)
Factor name No. Cronbach
α Factor loading Factor name No.
Cronbach
α Factor loading Factor name No.
Cronbach
α Factor loading
Self-perceived
employability 4 0.89 24.14% Internship goal 4 0.92 25.14% Internship norms
5 0.89 26.63%
Entrepreneurial
attitude 3 0.88 22.02% External employability 4 0.87 22.35% Internship attitude 4 0.87 21.17%
Entrepreneurial
ambition 4 0.86 18.26% Labor market characteristics 5 0.84 18.57% Entrepreneurial intention 3 0.85 20.32%
Total reliability
Cronbach α 0.92 Total reliability Cronbach α 0.91 Total reliability Cronbach α 0.92
Accumulated explained
variance 64.42% Accumulated explained variance 65.96%
Accumulated explained
variance 68.12%
Figure 1. Path of technical and vocation school students’ SEB.
The estimated value of the direct affecting parameter between IE and ESE is 0.83 (t = 6.71, p < 0.05). This
means that IE has a significant effect on ESE. The estimated value of the direct affecting parameter between IE
and SEB is 0.65 (t = 5.18, p > 0.05). This means that IE does not necessarily have a significant effect on ECI.
The estimated value of the direct affecting parameter between ESE and SEB is 0.88 (t = 6.23 , p < 0.05). This
means that ESE has a significant effect on SEB. In summary, in this study of tertiary education students’ SEB
and its influence pattern, IE has a significant effect on ESE, but does not have a significant effect on SEB, and
ESE has a significant effect on SEB.
4. Conclusions
Students’ IE has a significant direct effect on SEB, and ESE has a significant effect on SEB through IE. The in-
fluence pattern and empirical data of ESE and IE on SEB has a good fit. The influence effects of IE, ESE and
SEB shows that for tertiary education students, the influence of ESE on SEB comes mainly through their
awareness of IE. In addition, IE has a direct and significant effect on SEB. From the influence of IE, ESE and
SEB, we can clearly see that compared with ESE, IE has a greater influence on SEB [4] [5] [17] [20].
Regarding the test results, according to the goodness of fit test standard by Hair et al, the model in this study
has a good overall fit [15] [18]. In the absolute fitness and incremental fitness tests, all indices meet the standard,
and have the best fit. Most of the parsimonious fitness indices meet the test standard, and have a good fit. Over-

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all, in the SEB and its influence model established in the study based on theories, both the model and the data
have a good fit, and in the parameter estimation most of the estimated values are significant. This shows that all
the indices of latent variables have their importance, and only the parameter value of ESE on ECI is low. Overall,
the empirical data have a good explanatory power. Students’ ESE influences IE and “Self-perceived employa-
bility” is an important factor which influences ESE. Students’ ESE influences SEB, “Self-perceived employabil-
ity” and “Entrepreneurial attitude” are important factors which influence ECI [6] [17] [19] [20].
The results show that among all latent variables in the model, the direct influence of ESE on SEB is not sig-
nificant, indicating that the assumed influence of ESE on students’ SEB needs further testing; this is something
worthy of a more in-depth study and validation in the future. Based on test results, although the overall result is
acceptable, the model consistency level is not entirely satisfactory, and its Internship experience has a relatively
low explanatory power for ECI. The possible reasons are:
 The measurement error variance of the three main variables in the model is too large. Although in the course
of the investigation in this study each step was made following reasonable procedures, in a sample survey
there are a survey bias and restrictions on the study objects in answering the questionnaire. These can result
in a bias between the survey data and the actual situation [13] [19] [21].
 The influence of test indices and method. Currently in the verifying calculation of structural equations, the
index value is subject to the sample size, and sometimes the index value may influence each other. When the
index is far greater than or much lower than the standard value, the judgment is more accurate; when the in-
dex is close to the standard value, we then need to consider the possible influence from the error.
 The missing scope of variables. Although a complete research model was tried to be established in this study
based on past researches and theories, there has been little domestic research on the topic of students’ ECI.
5. Implication
There may be undetected factors which resulted in a low explanatory power, and there are other variables which
have not been identified [15] [16] [23] [24]. Regarding this model’s test results, perhaps in the future a further
study can be conducted to find the variables either missing in the theories or can be further added or deleted, or
more comprehensive empirical data can be collected for testing to improve the consistency between this model
and empirical data.
Acknowledgments
This paper was written while the authors were supported by a grant from the National Science Council, Republic
of China (NSC 102-2511-S-224 -001 -MY3)
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