Psychometric Assessment of Risk-Taking and Financial Work Skills as Predictors of Entrepreneurial Capabilities among Technical College Graduates in South-South Nigeria

Abstract

Technical college graduates in Nigeria, particularly in the South-South region, often lack entrepreneurial capabilities, hindering their transition into productive enterprise and economic empowerment. The absence of validated instruments to assess risk-taking propensity and financial work skills further constrains efforts to evaluate training effectiveness and design targeted interventions. This study conducted a psychometric assessment of risk-taking and financial work skills as predictors of entrepreneurial capabilities among technical college graduates in South-South Nigeria. Two research questions were raised, and two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at the 0.05 level of significance. A causal-comparative research design was adopted. The population comprised 9,658 graduates from government-owned technical colleges in the region during the 2022/2023 academic session. Using a multistage sampling procedure, a sample of 340 graduates and 26 principals drawn from 12 technical colleges across the six South-South states participated in the study. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire consisting of psychometrically scaled sub-measures of risk-taking work skills, financial work skills and entrepreneurial capabilities. Instrument validity was established through expert judgment and factor analytic procedures, while internal consistency reliability yielded coefficients of .72 for the Risk-Taking Skills Scale, .80 for the Financial Work Skills Scale and .87 for the Entrepreneurial Capabilities Scale. Out of 370 copies of the instrument administered, all were retrieved and analysed. Pearson’s coefficient of determination was used to answer the research questions, whereas linear regression statistics were employed to test the hypotheses at the .05 level of significance. The findings revealed that both risk-taking work skills and financial work skills significantly predicted entrepreneurial capabilities among technical college graduates, although their predictive strengths were modest. Based on these results, the study recommends that technical college curricula in South-South Nigeria be strengthened through integrated, competency-based entrepreneurship education programmes that combine psychometrically informed assessment with experiential learning approaches aimed at developing risk management dispositions, financial competence, innovation, resilience, opportunity recognition and strategic planning skills.