Education is the most important source of change in behavior (Ary, Jacobs, Irvine, & Walker, 2018). That is why people get education for a better social life. Education not only improves social life but also economic condition. The biggest reason for economic development is business education in the modern world. Therefore students of higher education select courses according to their interest in the improvement of their knowledge, skills and economic condition. At present, business education is getting a great deal around the world. More than 3000 universities are working in enterprise experience and provide entrepreneurial skills according to students’ field of interest (Premand, Brodmann, Almeida, Grun, & Barouni, 2016). Basically, entrepreneurship is a risk-taking activity, therefore motivation, knowledge and special how to know is essential for improving self-confidence for future benefits (Venkataraman, 2019). Education improves students’ interest, Self-efficacy (SE), adaptability and entrepreneurial intention (EI) towards entrepreneurship. SE, adaptability and intentions are also traits of special behavior.

Bandura (1997) defined that SE is a person’s confidence in his or her special aptitude to achieve a job or a specific set of tasks. An individual’s mental appraisalof “capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action are needed to exercise control over task demands”. SE focuses on two dimensions to attain high analytical power (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017). It is a belief and confidence in achieving exact task successfully and second is an activity domain, that a person’s have abilities to apply several related tasks within a domain (Miao, Qian, & Ma, 2017).

Many experiential studies proved that optimistic association between SE and altered motivational and social outcomes in instructive and organizational situations (Luthans, Luthans, Hodgetts, & Luthans, 2001). Like other personality assets, SE is also developed through teaching and demonstrating (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). SE provides a wide extension in the traditional and motivational approaches (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998).

Adaptability is concerned with the capacity to adjust to suit new situations (Woods, 2017). The idea of adaptation alters in natural science and in social science. Adaptation is reinforced through suitable planning and compulsory for social systems to have the capability to adapt (Knapp, Veen, Renting, Wiskerke, & Groot, 2016). It is the capacity of a human system to adjust itself in order to maintain, progress and excellence beside a series of disturbances in their physical or social environment. A social systems’ aptitude to adapt is depend on an excessive range on synchronized

cooperative and institutional actions through which efficiency enhance by developing mutual trust, social integration, community network, rules, consensus and information flow used by both individuals to their own benefit and the community (Pardo, Cresswell, Thompson, & Zhang, 2006).

EI’ defined as a state of mind that guides a person’s devotion, experience and action towards a specific goal, or a pathway to attain something (Karimi, Biemans, Lans, Chizari, & Mulder, 2016). Entrepreneurial accomplishment is expected like an intentional behavior (Vesalainen & Pihkala, 1999). Logically, the intent is providing motivation for action. The ability for self-motivation and planed action rooted in cognitive activity (Adam & Fayolle, 2015). In cognitive motivation, people make their actions preventive through the exercise of planning and guide (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 2001).

Thus entrepreneurship is the type of planned behavior of intention model (Kautonen, van Gelderen, & Fink, 2015). It provides a calculation for a person’s personality, status and explanation of their entrepreneurial behavior(Krueger Jr, 2007). For entrepreneurial behavior, three dimensions; SE, adaptability and EI are also needed for university students. Therefore the purpose of the study is to investigate the correlation between these extents in the Pakistani context.

The present study is descriptive in nature which provides insight about SE, adaptability and EI. The survey was deliberated to be most appropriate for dependable results and address the matter. The questionnaire used for data collection. For analysis of data, SPSS-20 was used.

Population

University Students of management science and economics from Punjab and Islamabad territory of Pakistan were the population of the study.

Sample

A multistage sampling technique used for data collection. In the first stage, conveniently participants included from seven universities (the Islamia university of Bahawalpur, University of Punjab, Bahu Al Din Zakaria University Multan, Government College University Faisal Abad, PMASAAU Rawalpindi, Qaid E Azam University Islamabad and Islamic International University Islamabad) of the Punjab and Islamabad territories. In the second stage, two semesters (7th and 8th) from BS classes and two (3rd and 4th) from Master Classes selected. In the third stage; 280 students from BS honor (140 from seventh and 140 from the eighth semester) as well 240 students from a master class (140 from third and 140 from the fourth semester) selected by simple random sample. Total of 560 questionnaires distributed in students and 493 questionnaires returned in the scheduled time period.

In the present study, 245 (49.7%) students study in master classes and 248 (50.3%) students study in BS honor classes (see table 1.1). regarding semester, 119 (24.1%) students study in 3rd semester, 126 (25.6%) in 4th semester, 125 (25.4%) in 7th and 123 (24.9%) students in 8th semester. About 283 (57.4%) of students are male and 210 (42.6%) students are female. Nearly 409 (83.0%) students from urban areas and 84 (17.0%) students are from rural areas. Approximately, 268 (54.4%) fathers’ qualification in between matric and graduation, and 210 (42%) have a master or higher qualification. As, the majority of the students’ mothers’ qualification 312 (63.3%) in between matric and graduation, and 136 (27.6%) have a master or higher qualification. About 130 (26.4%) students are reported their fathers’ profession as private employees, 194 (39.4%) government employees, 110 (22.3%) self-employed, 39 (7.9 %) retired and 20 (4.1%) unemployed.

Table 1. Personal Characteristics of Respondents

Research Tool

For study purpose, previous entrepreneurial aptitude scale (prepared by author) was used after some modification. Several studies on personality traits have examined by the different psychological feature of persons. In the present study; SE, adaptability and EI (SEAEI ) were addressed.

The original scale is comprised of 34 items that are divided into four factors named; Locus of control, SE, EI and Adaptability. In current research 23 items are used. The first factor SE is contained of (7 items), adaptability contained (6 items), and EI (10 items) separately. The author reported Cronbach's ? of the whole scale was .89. Researchers are also personally collected the required data from university students. Detail of SPSS-20 analysis is in results.

The collected data analyzed for exploratory factor analysis (EFA). In the second phase, t-test, one-way ANVOA and Pearson correlation applied. The fundamental factor structure in the 23-items of SEAEI scale; we were conducted the EFA with Principal Components Method (PCM) tracked by Varimax rotation (see Table 2).

The result of EFA verified that three-factor solutions perceived for data sets on the basis of eigenvalues greater than one and were accounted for more than 50% of the common variance. The significance of the KMO measure of sampling adequacy was .866 and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was df(276) = 3729.739, p < .000. The three factors of SEAEI produced by EFA were SE (7, 3, 6, 4, 2, 1, 5; Cronbach's ? = .764), adaptability (9, 13, 8, 12, 10, 11; Cronbach's ? = .730), and EI (19,21,22,23,17,14,15,20,16,18; Cronbach's ? = .772). Factor loadings of three dimensions range from 0.423 to 0.738. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the overall scale was .89.

A correlation matrix among the three dimensions of the scale showed that SE has a high correlation with adaptability (r=.639, p< .01) and a high correlation with EI (r=.693, p<.01). Moreover, adaptability is also showed high correlation with EI (r=.621, p< .01).

Table 3. Correlation Coefficients among the sub-scales of SEAEI

The effects of personal characteristics of university students as independent variables and SEAEI as dependent variables are calculated (See table 4). The results of t-test expose that the main effect of gender was significant. Male (M = 30.88, SD = 4.88) and female (M = 27.54, SD = 6.48) students differ significantly in terms of SE, t(493) = 6.549, p < .000. However, the difference between urban (M = 29.44, SD = 5.89) and rural (M = 29.54, SD = 5.49) students is not significant difference considering SE t(493) = -.147, p < .883. Similarly, there is a significant difference between the students of Master class (M = 29.48, SD = 5.80) and BS (honors) class (M = 29.44, SD = 5.85) regarding SE, t(493) = -1.63, p < .103. Moreover, the results of ANOVA also reveal a significant difference between fathers’ education F = 3.862, p < .002, mothers’ education F=3.493, Sig< .004 However, in case of fathers’ occupation F=.403, Sig< .806 the difference is not significant.

Table 4. Results of t-test and ANOVA Representing the Effect of Personal Characteristics on SE of University Students for Entrepreneurship

To discover the effects of personal characteristics of university students as independent variables and SEAEI as dependent variables are used (See table 5). The results of t-test exposed that the main effect of gender was significant. Male (M = 30.88, SD = 4.88) and female (M = 27.54, SD = 6.42) students differ significantly in terms of adaptability, t(493) = 6.447, p < .000. However, the difference between urban (M = 23.28, SD = 4.30) and rural (M = 24.10, SD = 3.64) students is not significant considering adaptability t(493) = -1.631, p < .104. Similarly, there is a significant difference between the students of Master class (M = 23.25, SD = 4.51) and BS (honors) class (M = 23.59, SD = 3.88) regarding adaptability, t(493) = -1.631, p < .104. Moreover, the results of ANOVA also reveal a significant difference between fathers’ education F=2..475, Sig< .031, However, in case of mothers’ education F=2.139, Sig< .060 and fathers’ occupation F= .141, Sig< .967the difference is not significant.

Table 5. Results of t-test and ANOVA representing the effect of Personal Characteristics on the adaptability of University Students for entrepreneurship

The effects of personal characteristics of university students as independent variables and SEAEI as dependent variables were calculated (See table 6). The results of t-test exposed that the main effect of gender was significant. Male (M = 39.014, SD = 5.73) and female (M = 35.51, SD = 7.23) students differ significantly in terms of EI, t(493) = 5.99, p < .000. However, the difference between urban (M = 37.718, SD = 6.70) and rural (M = 36.5, SD = 6.28) students is not significant considering EI t(493) = 1.444, p < .149. Similarly, there is not significant difference between the students of Master class (M = 37.47, SD = 6.38) and BS (honors) class (M = 37.56, SD = 6.88) regarding EI, t (493) = -1.631, p < .104. Moreover, the results of ANOVA also reveal a significant difference between fathers’ education F=4.029, Sig< .001 and mothers’ education F=3.206, Sig< .007, However, in case of fathers’ occupation F= 2.063, Sig< .085 the difference is not significant.

Table 6. Results of t-test and ANOVA Representing the Effect of Personal Characteristics on EI of University Students