ENTREPRENEURS’ MENTORING OF UNDERGRADUATE BUSINESS EDUCATION STUDENTS IN DELTA STATE

Abstract

This study examined how often entrepreneurs mentored undergraduate business education students in Delta State on the development of 21st century higher order entrepreneurial behavioural skills during industrial training. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. A survey design was adopted. The populations for the study were the 274 undergraduate students who
took part in the 2016 Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme. A 20 questionnaire item, designed on a 5-point rating scale served as the instrument for data collection. Data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts and mean. The null hypotheses were tested using the z-test. Findings from the study showed that the Industrial Training students were not often mentored on the development of innovative entrepreneurial behaviours. They were moderately mentored on the development of creative and proactive entrepreneurial behaviours. There was no significant difference on how often male and female IT students were mentored. As the level of mentoring on these core and critical entrepreneurial success factors were considered inadequate, it
was recommended that a planned entrepreneurs’ mentoring of protégé students be incorporated into the SIWES programme. It was also advocated that that a co-operative learning plan where students attend lectures in the morning and go to work in the afternoon be adopted. Industrial Training students were enjoined to consciously and critically understudy the behavior of the entrepreneurs to
whom they were attached.

KEY CONCEPTS: Entrepreneurship, mentoring, innovativeness, creativity and proactively