Entrepreneurial Orientation Among Vocational and Technical Students in Kuantan District

This study attempted to investigate the level of entrepreneurial orientation of vocational and technical school students in Kuantan District, Pahang. Specifically, it aimed to investigate the correlates of entrepreneurial orientation along five categories, namely: (1) students' personal characteristics (2) family-related matters (3) school-related matters (4) working experience and (5) environmental factors. The respondents were Form Four students from the two vocational and technical schools in Kuantan District. Of the 337 questionnaires distributed to the respondents, 334 usable sets were returned for analysis. The instrument used was constructed by the researcher with reference to the Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation by Robinson et. al. (1991), the General Enterprising Tendency Test (1988) and Gray (1989). The instrument, which consisted of 63 items, was pre-tested for validity and reliability. Data were analyzed using T-Test and ANOVA to investigate the differences in entrepreneurial orientation along variables within students' profile. The 0.05 level of significance was used as critical level for decision-making regarding the hypotheses. The findings of this study showed that entrepreneurial orientation is affected by each of the variables under the following three categories: school-related matters, working experience, and environmental factors. However, it was found that not all the variables under the categories of students' personal characteristics and family-related matters are significantly affecting entrepreneurial orientation. Under the category of students' personal characteristics, statistical results indicated that gender has significant effect on the entrepreneurial orientation of students. On the contrary, enthnicity showed no significant difference in entrepreneurial orientation, with all the ethnic groups showing similar level of entrepreneurial orientation. Other than that, findings on family-related matters revealed that there were no significant differences in entrepreneurial orientation along family income, parents' education, and parents' occupation respectively. However, there were significant differences in entrepreneurial orientation among students of various ranking in the family. As for the category of school-related matters, all the independent variables, namely stream, activities participated in schools, and responsible positions held, are significantly related to the entrepreneurial orientation of students. Besides, empirical evidence showed that students with working experience differ significantly from students without working experience in entrepreneurial orientation. Similarly, with regard to the category of environmental factors, statistical significant differences were observed in the entrepreneurial orientation of students along rural/urban differentials and the influence of significant others.