Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking as Predictors of Business Education Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions in Tertiary Institutions in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined digital literacy and critical thinking as predictors of business education students’ entrepreneurial intentions in tertiary institutions in Anambra state, Nigeria. The advancement in technology has changed the activities of the 21st-century businesses in the environment. For business education students to fit in, it becomes imperative to determine the correlation between digital literacy and entrepreneurial intentions of business education students in tertiary institutions. The survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 1605 business education students in the 2023/2024 academic session from the four public tertiary institutions offering business education programs in Anambra State, from which a sample of 320 was drawn for the study. Thus, a proportional sampling method was used to select the sample. A 15-item self structured questionnaire was designed and validated by two business educators and found reliable at Cronbach's alpha coefficient value of 0.82. Data analysis was done using Ordinal Multiple regression technique. The findings revealed that digital literacy and critical thinking have a significant positive influence on entrepreneurial intentions among business education students, with lower levels of entrepreneurial intentions associated with lower levels of digital literacy and critical thinking, while higher levels linked to higher levels of these skills. Moderate levels of entrepreneurial intentions seem to be less influenced by digital literacy and critical thinking, suggesting other factors might be at play for students with moderate intentions. This study recommended among others that effects of other factors be investigated in addition to encouraging the integrating of the development of digital literacy and critical thinking skills in business education.