Moderating Role of Self-efficacy in the Relationship between Entrepreneurship Education and Venture Creation in Nigeria

Self-employment is top on Nigeria’s national agenda because of the country's skyrocketing rate of unemployment, with the expectation that they may give alternative sources of employment. However, it is widely believed that university students' training has not successfully equipped them with the requisite skills and competencies necessary for venture creation. Therefore, this paper aims to examine whether students’ self-efficacy could moderate the relationship between entrepreneurship education program and venture creation. 811 students were sampled from universities across Nigeria's North-Eastern and North-Western states. The study uses PLS-SEM to analyze the data. The results reveal that the relationship between perceived course content and venture creation among students is positive but insignificant. The relationship between perceived facilitators’ competence and venture creation is also found to be positive and significant. In addition, the findings indicate that self-efficacy has a positive and significant moderating effect on the relationship between perceived delivery method and venture creation. The study concludes that facilitator’s profile, delivery method and self-efficacy are essential determinants of venture creation for university students and graduates. Therefore, the study provides theoretical and empirical evidence to the earlier assumption that self-efficacy could strengthen the relationship between entrepreneurship education and venture creation.