Abstract:

Entrepreneurship education has gained increasing attention in higher education, particularly within technical study programmes where fostering entrepreneurial mindsets is considered essential for innovation. This study is conducted in the context of ongoing curriculum modernisation, whereby an existing entrepreneurship course has been enhanced with innovative topics, contemporary tools and approaches as part of the HEI2Market project aimed at strengthening entrepreneurial competencies in higher education. A validated questionnaire based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), measuring personal attitude towards entrepreneurship (PA), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioural control (PBC) and entrepreneurial intention (EI), was administered to 99 undergraduate students enrolled in Multimedia and Electrical Engineering programmes at a Croatian higher education institution at the beginning of the course, serving as a pre-intervention baseline measurement.

Results indicate that students expressed moderately high personal attitudes (M=5.15) and strong perceived social support (M=6.17), while perceived behavioural control remained notably lower (M=3.51), suggesting a gap between social encouragement and self-perceived entrepreneurial capability. Entrepreneurial intention was moderate (M=4.38), with personal attitude emerging as its strongest correlate (r=0.84). All scales demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency (Cronbach's α ranging from 0.80 to 0.96). These preliminary findings highlight the importance of designing entrepreneurship education that specifically targets students' self-efficacy and practical competencies. A post-intervention evaluation is planned upon course completion, with the primary aim of assessing whether students demonstrate increased confidence in their entrepreneurial capabilities and intentions, after completing the course. The broader goal is to derive implications for curriculum design and entrepreneurship pedagogy in technical higher education.

Keywords:

Theory of planned behaviour, entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurship education, technical studies, higher education.