Physicist entrepreneurial development: Ascertaining student’s level of skills acquisition, readiness and implications for national development

Abstract

This paper investigated the level of entrepreneurship development among Physics students with regards to their theoretical and practical acquisition of entrepreneurship skills as well as their level of readiness or preparedness for engaging in small to medium scale enterprise. The population for this study comprised all the physics students in NCE and Degree programme in 2015/2016 academic session at Federal College of Education (Technical) Omoku, River State. A total of twenty students were used for the study. The descriptive survey research design was adopted in carrying out the study. Five research questions and five hypotheses guided the study. The instrument used to obtain data was a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire called, “Physics Entrepreneurship Skills, Readiness and Implications questionnaires (PESRIQ)”, which had twenty-items. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Differences in mean were tested using T test statistic. The results revealed that Physics students had high skills level and were prepared to venture into the business world and also develop themselves further (mean>2.5; p<0.05). They all agreed that Physics entrepreneurship development enhances national development due to creation of wealth and job opportunities, which will among other things enhance the well-being of the individuals and people connected to them. It was therefore recommended that a formal Physics Entrepreneurship program at all levels of educational institutions should be introduced to provide training and empowerment for physicists as entrepreneurs