Evaluating an Art and Design Students’ Gender-Based Entrepreneurial Potential Model

Abstract

Extant literature has revealed the issue of gender inequality in art and design education and entrepreneurship. Given that gender inequality hinders socio-economic development in any nation, it is crucial to gather empirical evidence on whether the entrepreneurial potential of art and design students is influenced by gender. Hence, this study examined the relationship between art and design students’ gender and their entrepreneurial potential. Using a well-structured questionnaire, the study sampled 204 art and design undergraduate students from different higher institutions across Nigeria. Data were collected from participants using a questionnaire that included measures of their entrepreneurial traits. The hypothesized relationships among variables were tested based on Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings indicate that CFA and SEM results showed a good fit between the proposed model and the observed data for both female and male groups. This suggests that both genders of art and design students have significant potential to become entrepreneurs without any biases.