Quantitative Method - Data Analysis

The Economists

3.3 Data Analysis

3.3.2 Quantitative Method

There were two questionnaire instruments that were used to analyse the impact of entrepreneurship through formal education on the experimental and control group. They are the instruments developed by Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995’s general self-efficacy scale that tested the self-efficacy level of the respondents and Mansfield, McClelland, Spencer and Santiago, 1987 that tested 13 personal entrepreneurial competencies of the respondents.

Mansfield et al., 1987’s personal entrepreneurial competencies questionnaire was deemed appropriate for this research because this instrument was designed to identify personal characteristics that facilitate entrepreneur’s success in developing countries (Mansfield et al., 1987). As discussed in the literature review chapter, the instrument was first tested on 3 developing countries; Malawi, Ecuador and India. It is now been tested in many developing countries including Malaysia. Therefore, a pilot test on the instrument was not needed for this research.

The research also uses the questionnaire instrument developed by Schwarzer &

Jerusalem, 1995’s general self-efficacy scale which has been tested in 28 countries including Malaysia. Hence, a pilot test on the instrument was not needed for this research. The reliability of using both of these instruments in the context of Malaysia which is the context of this study is understandably high.

The Mansfield et al., 1987’s personal entrepreneurial competencies questionnaire was conducted in UiTM since 2012 by Professor Dr. Haji Razmi Chik for a different research

71 purpose. Because the instrument was originally in English, the questionnaire was translated into Malay, the official language of Malaysia for the ease of the respondents to understand the questions better. With the consent of Professor Dr. Haji Razmi who tested the language reliability of the questionnaire, the translated version of the questionnaire was used in this research (refer to Appendix A, Part 2). Henceforth, ‘Language Pilot Test’ (in Malay, Pra-Uji Bahasa) was not needed for the research.

The Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995’s general self-efficacy scale was translated into Malay and tested on 1142 respondents in 2005 by Dr. Wendy Yee Mei Tien, University Malaya for the research of inter-ethnic tolerance and cross-cultural communication. With the consent from Dr. Wendy Yee, the bilingual of Malay and English general self-efficacy scale questionnaire was adapted for this research (see Appendix A, Part 1). Therefore, pilot test on the language reliability of the instrument was not needed for the research.

Both of the questionnaire instruments were analysed using the Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test, which is sometimes referred to as the Mann-Whitney or Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test.

Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test is a non-parametric method which test the hypothesis that two independent samples (that is, unmatched data) are from the populations with the same distribution (Wilcoxon 1945; Mann and Whitney 1947). Methods such as the t-test which are known as ‘parametric’ because they require estimation of the parameters that define the underlying distribution of the data; in the case of the t-test, for instance, these parameters are the mean and standard deviation that define the Normal distribution (Whitley and Ball, 2002) where the data are continuous. Nonparametric methods provide an alternative series of statistical methods that require no or very limited assumptions to be made about the data (Whitley and Ball, 2002).

The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test is a non-parametric alternative to the unpaired t-test (Crawley, 2015) that is used to compare the means or medians of two independent

72 samples or populations where the data are non-normal distribution. The data of this research are discrete or ordinal of nature where the questionnaire uses Likert scales to measure the respondents score. The experimental group of entrepreneur third year students from UiTM and the control group of veterinarian third year students from UPM are both independent samples.

The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test is commonly used in medical research to compare treatment impact or outcomes, or patient characteristics in nonrandomized groups (Whitley and Ball, 2002: Fagerland & Sandvik, 2009: Winter & Dodou, 2010: Krzywinski & Altman, 2014). This research would like to understand whether entrepreneurship education has an impact on the students’ self-efficacy, self-confidence level, initiative, the ability to see and act on opportunities, problem solving skills, efficiency orientation, assertiveness, ability to persuade people, use of influence strategy, their concern for high quality and commitment to work, persistency, initiative, information seeking and systematic planning. Therefore, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test is used to analyse the data of this research.

After collecting all the questionnaires from the respondents, each questionnaire was then coded. The students from the experimental group were coded accordingly by ‘E1’, ‘E2’,

‘E3’ until ‘E70’ with ‘E’ representing students who underwent the Bachelor Degree Program in Entrepreneurship and the number ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’ represents respondent 1, 2 and 3. For the students in control group, their questionnaires were coded by ‘V1’, ‘V2’, ‘V3’ until ‘V82’

with ‘V’ representing the veterinary medicine students and the number ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’ represents respondent 1, 2 and 3. The scores of each of the questionnaire were then keyed in into an excel sheet.

The Schwarzer & Jerusalem, 1995’s general self-efficacy scale consist of ten questions with four Likert scales; 1 = Not at all true, 2 = Hardly true, 3 = Moderately true and 4 = Exactly true. Each of the ten questions was coded with ‘Q1’, ‘Q2’, ‘Q3’ until ‘Q10’

73 with ‘Q1’ representing question 1, ‘Q2’ representing question 2 and ‘Q10’ representing question 10.

After the scores of each respondent were keyed-in into the excel file, the data were analysed using the R software, version 3.4. The R software was used to calculate the mean, standard deviation, and the W-value in order to determine the value of the study groups. P-value is used to assess the null hypothesis that the two samples’ mean are the same (Crawley, 2015). If the P-value is lower than the significance level alpha of 0.05, one should reject the null hypothesis H0, and accept the alternative hypothesis Ha (Crawley, 2015). The hypothesis the research would like to test on with this instrument is;

Null hypothesis

Ho: Students who are exposed to entrepreneurship through formal education (entrepreneur students) have the same self-efficacy level as the students who are not exposed to entrepreneurship through formal education (veterinarian students).

Alternative Hypothesis

Ha: Students who are exposed to entrepreneurship through formal education (entrepreneur students) have higher self-efficacy level than students who are not exposed to entrepreneurship through formal education (veterinarian students).

In other words;

Ho: E = V Ha: E > V

Where E refers to entrepreneur students, and V refers to veterinarian students

74 Mansfield et al., 1987’s personal entrepreneurial competencies (PECs) questionnaire has 70 questions that identified 13 entrepreneurial competencies using five Likert scales; 1 = Not at all, 2 = Very little, 3 = Somewhat, 4 = Well, and 5 = Very Well. The 13 entrepreneurial competencies are initiative, sees and acts on opportunities, persistence, information seeking, concern for high quality of work, commitment to work contract, efficiency orientation, systematic planning, problem solving, self-confidence, assertiveness, persuasion and use of influence strategies. Figure 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 shows the scoring sheet by Mansfield et al., 1987 that carried detailed instructions on how the 70 questions are calculated.

75 Figure 9: Mansfield et al., 1987’s PECs Scoring Sheet.