The Influence of Digital Entrepreneurship Education on Vocational Students’ Digital Entrepreneurial Intention: The Mediating Role of Digital Entrepreneurial Knowledge and Skills

In the digital age, China has launched major reform projects in order to strengthen youth entrepreneurship. It is important to identify factors contributing to enhanced youth entrepreneurship intention. Based on the theory of entrepreneurial human capital, this study employs questionnaires from 382 vocational school students to explore the status quo of digital entrepreneurship education and the influence of digital entrepreneurship education, digital entrepreneurial knowledge and skills on digital entrepreneurial intention. Data were collected using a face-to-face questionnaire from management students who had completed a program in digital entrepreneurship. The data analysis design incorporates both exploratory (PCA using IBM SPSS Statistics 26) and confirmatory factor analysis (PLS-SEM using SmartPLS 3). The study results prove the following. First, the participation rate of entrepreneurship education in vocational schools is much higher than in their counterpart (academic schools), with more than half of vocational students reporting having received entrepreneurship education of diverse types. Second, students evaluated themselves with relatively high entrepreneurial skills and intention, although they answered ‘‘unclear’’ to entrepreneurial knowledge and entrepreneurship education. Third, motivation and leadership, as well as enterprise knowledge, play mediating roles through which digital entrepreneurship education affects digital entrepreneurial intention, and represent two types of entrepreneurial human capital-entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. The implications of effective educational implementation are discussed.