Students’ Intentions Toward Accessing Career Guidance Services for Entrepreneurship Learning in Higher Learning Institutions. Experience from the College of Business Education, Tanzania

Abstract

Despite Career Guidance Services (CGSs) being an imperative tool for supporting higher learning students to acquire more knowledge about their career development, including those wishing to become entrepreneurs, the services are ineffectively accessed by students, thus threatening their career development. This study examined students’ intentions toward accessing career guidance services for entrepreneurship learning in higher education institutions, drawing on experiences from the College of Business Education in Tanzania. The study employed a parallel convergent mixed research design and involved 260 third-year bachelor students, two lecturers, one head of department and one dean of students. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used in data collection. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse quantitative data using SPSS, while qualitative data were analysed thematically. The findings revealed that most higher learning students had a low level of accessing CGSs for entrepreneurship learning. Whereas subjective norms
(β=.374, p=.001) and perceived behavioural control (β=.708, p=.001) demonstrated a positive, significant relationship with access to CGSs for entrepre-neurship learning, attitudes (β=.174, p=.066) showed a positive, but insignificant relation-ship. The study recommends that policymakers and educational practitioners emphasise education to students about the importance of CGSs for their career development.