Assessment of Relationship between Personal Attitude and the Entrepreneurship Intention among Students in Federal Polytechnic in Northern Nigeria

As presently conceptualized, entrepreneurship education is implemented in Nigerian tertiary educational institutions to equip the undergraduate with business skills that would make them self-employed rather than job seekers, at graduation. The assessed relationship between personal attitude and the entrepreneurship intention among students in Federal Polytechnic in Northern Nigeria. This study was guided by a hypothesis. The study adopted causal comparative (Ex-Post-factor) design. The population of the study was made up of all the students in federal polytechnics in Northern Nigeria. Simple random sampling method named Dip-hand sampling method was used to select the sampled states for the study while proportional sampling method was used in selecting respondents from each school in the selected federal polytechnics, while the sample size was 1,135. The instrument for the study was researcher’s developed Likert-type questionnaire named influence of entrepreneur courses in the development of students’ career opportunities in Universities Nigeria. Split-half reliability was used to test the reliability of the instrument with reliability index of 0.79. PPMC was used to test hypothesis six at 0.05 alpha level of significance. It was concluded that students in Federal Polytechnic in Northern Nigeria have personal attitude towards entrepreneurship intention. It was recommended that Government should provide loans to encourage small and medium scale enterprises.


Introduction
The introduction of entrepreneurship education by the Federal Government of Nigeria represents one of the concrete efforts to stem the tide of rising graduate unemployment in the country. Writing on entrepreneurship education, Anyanwu, Obichere and Ossai-Onah (2012) explained that it is the process of inculcating the knowledge of creating value by pooling together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity. As presently conceptualized, entrepreneurship education is implemented in Nigerian tertiary educational institutions to equip the undergraduate with business skills that would make them self-employed rather than job seekers, at graduation. Based on the understanding that entrepreneurship education will free the enterprising and innovative spirit of the beneficiaries', the Federal Government of Nigeria has approved its incorporation into the curriculum of her higher education institutions. The National Universities Commission (NUC) and National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), in line with their mandates as regulators of universities and polytechnics programmes, insist that students must take and pass specific entrepreneurship courses before graduation.
Another study from Sri Lanka, (kumara, 2012) has further revealed that students who have received entrepreneurial education often develop positive attitudes and beliefs towards self-employment and entrepreneurship intention to a large extent.
In recent times, there has been increasing global concern over the continuously expanded rates of unemployment around the world, particularly in most developing countries, where the youth have been identified as the most affected groups. As a result, various governmental and non-governmental organizations have initiated policies through support agencies such as National Directorate for Employment (NDE), the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), Small Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), Raw Materials & Development Council (RMRDC) among others to address the problems of unemployment among Nigerian citizens (Emannuel, 2012).

Hypothesis
H1. There is no relationship between personal attitude and the entrepreneurship intention among students in Federal Polytechnic in Northern Nigeria.

Methodology
In this study, the researcher adopted a causal-comparative (Ex-Post-factor) design, since the study was an existing identified phenomenon. According to Kerlinger (2000), the Ex-Post-Factor design is a design in which the investigation of the variable is done retrospectively whether they have occurred in natural cause of the event. Because no variables are manipulated, an independent variable is the one in which the cause and effect are wanted. Ofo (1994), also supported that the causal-comparative or Ex-Post-Facto research attempts to determine the causeand-effect relationships by examining conditions and tracing back the information and available data for probable causal factors. She furthered that Causal-comparative studies start with an identified effect and proceeds to find possible causes.
The population of this study is made up of all the students in federal polytechnics in Northern Nigeria. A simple random sampling method named Dip-hand sampling method by Adegboye (2001) was used to select the sampled states for the study while the proportional sampling method was used in selecting respondents from each school in the selected federal polytechnics. The procedure was used as follow: i.
The Northern Nigeria is made up of 19 states that are divided into 3 geo-political zones, namely:-North Central (6 states), North East (6 states) and North West (7 states). Three students were assigned to select sampled states. Each student represented each zone and the name of each state was written on pieces of paper, put in a container for the student assigned to the zone to pick. Proportional sampling method was used in selecting respondents from the seven states and respondents were selected from the four faculties. This summed of 1,135 questionnaires will be distributed to the seven sampled federal universities. iii.
Systematic sampling procedure will be used to assign questionnaires to respondents.
The instrument for the study was researcher's developed Likert-type questionnaire named influence of entrepreneur courses in the development of students' career opportunities in Universities Nigeria. This was divided into two (2) sections. Section "A" demanded data on demographic characteristics of the respondents while section "B" requested information on the influence of entrepreneur courses in the development of students' career opportunities in polytechnics Nigeria. Responses to the statements are Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Undecided (U), Disagree (D) and Strongly Disagree (SD).
The responses for items in section B were rated as follows: The instrument was validated by researcher's supervisors, experts entrepreneurship and business and also specialists in test and measurement to ensure face and content validity of the instrument. Corrections, suggestions and observations were incorporated in the final draft of the questionnaire, and subsequently approved by the supervisors before it was administered. To ascertain the reliability of the research instrument, the validated questionnaire will be subjected to pilot study using sixty (60) students of polytechnics which are not part of the study, these participants were not part of the study and twenty four statements formulated from the variables were tested. Split-half method was used to examine the reliability of the instrument. Ofo (1994) stated that the splithalf reliability is a type of internal consistency reliability. In its case only one test is administered and it eliminates measurement errors such as differences in testing conditions which could easily affect the test-retst reliability. The reliability coefficient was 0.79, which make the instrument reliable for the study.
To conduct the administration of the research instrument, an introductory letter will be collected from The Coordinator, Research, Innovation and Technology Transfer Office, Kaduna Polytechnic, Kaduna. The Researcher also requested the permission of the sampled federal polytechnics before questionnaires will be administered to the respondents. The researcher will go round the sampled states to administer the instrument with the help of five (5) trained research assistants in each Polytechnic, who interpreted the questions to the respondents in simple language that do not influence their responses. Person's Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) was used to test hypothesis six at 0.05 alpha level of significance.

Result
There is no relationship between personal attitude and the entrepreneurship intention. The table above reveals that mean (x) score for entrepreneurship intention is 12.44, while that of the personal attitude is 12.61, the standard deviation (SD) for entrepreneurship intention is1.71 and the personal attitude is 1.40. The statistical computation shows that a very strong relationship exist with df=1,133; r=0.88 (P<0.05) The null hypothesis stated was rejected on the account that significant relationship exist. There is a relationship between personal attitude and the entrepreneurship intention.

Discussion
Relationship exists between personal attitude and the entrepreneurship intention. This is in-line with Christina (2017), who studied Attitude, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavior, Entrepreneurship Education and Selfefficacy toward Entrepreneurial Intention University Student in Indonesia. Based on the hypothesis testing used the F test obtained F-count value of 22.770 with a significant level of 00001. The results showed that the variable attitudes, subjective norms and behavioral control together a significant effect on variable university student entrepreneurship intentions. It is also agreed with the study of Dinc Sait and Budic Semira (2016), who studied Impact of Personal Attitude, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioural Control on Entrepreneurial Intentions of Women. The result of their study showed that personal attitude significantly and positively influenced Entrepreneurial Intentions of Women. This means that women who have good overall perceptions of the concept of entrepreneurship are more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions, or more precisely, to start companies one day. This is agreed with the study of Benachenhou Mohammed and Omar, (2017) that conducted research on Influence of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavior Control on entrepreneurial intention. The findings of their study have shown that students' attitudes towards entrepreneurship and subjective norms, have a significant effect on behavioral intentions to entrepreneurship. On the other hand, perceived behavioral control had no significant effect. It is also consistent with the study of Norziani Dahalan, Mastura Jaafar, and Siti Asma' Mohd Rosdi (2015) who conducted research on attitude and entrepreneurial Intention among rural Community. The findings of the study showed that both attitude (attitude toward money, attitude toward start-up) influence entrepreneurial intention. The relationship between attitude toward start-up and entrepreneurial intention was mediated by opportunity recognition.

Recommendation
Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations were made: 1. Polytechnic should organize and encourage students to attend entrepreneurial competitions and join workshops on entrepreneurship. 2. The government should provide loans to encourage small and medium scale enterprises among students.