Exploring the Effects of Higher Education Experiences on Male and Female STEM Majors' Attitude Towards Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this study was to assess how higher education experiences differently affect female and male STEM students' personal valuation about becoming an entrepreneur. The promotion of entrepreneurship has made its way onto the agendas of policymakers, students, and institutions of higher education. Nonetheless, most studies indicate that male students are significantly more likely than female students to express positive personal valuations about becoming an entrepreneur. The factors influencing this difference, however, are left unexamined. An understanding of how higher education experiences foster or deter interest in entrepreneurship is important for the success of campus-based entrepreneurship initiatives, and for ensuring equal opportunities for female student participation. Universities and colleges in the United States (US) have been at the forefront of efforts to foster student entrepreneurship. Using a series of ordinal logistic regressions on a multi-institutional sample of 871 four-year college and university students collected by the Wabash National Study in the US, I examine student attitudes towards becoming an entrepreneur, along with student responses regarding their higher education experiences on three different waves. Results show that on entering higher education male students are more likely than female students to view becoming an entrepreneur as important, and that this gap widens over time. Moreover, becoming an entrepreneur loses importance for both male and female students over time. This study also found certain personality traits and higher education experiences as significantly associated with studentsâ valuations of the importance of becoming an entrepreneur, namely the degree to which one enjoys engaging in effortful cognitive activities, exams and assignments that require higher-order thinking, and interactions with faculty. This study contributes to understandings of the relationship between higher education and entrepreneurship in several ways. First, the results of this study show that attitudes towards entrepreneurship are weakly associated with key personality traits, indicating that differences between male and female valuations of the importance of becoming an entrepreneur likely stem in part from social expectations and experiences. Second, the results from this study provide colleges and universities with evidence that certain practices may make a difference in the likelihood students will value as important becoming an entrepreneur. The conclusions of this study suggest that colleges and universities interested in promoting student entrepreneurship should be proactive in harnessing studentsâ entrepreneurial interests early in their higher education, when such interests are at their highest.Ph.D