Resumen Con el desarrollo de la presente investigación se pretende determinar la percepción de autoeficacia emprendedora de los estudiantes de grado universitario (G.U.) y de grado superior (G.S.) de formación profesional de la Ciudad Autónoma de Melilla, con objeto de poder comparar los datos obtenidos con el resto de las comunidades autónomas de España, comprobar si existen diferencias en dichas percepciones entre los estudiantes de G.U. y G.S., así como entre las puntuaciones obtenidas entre los estudiantes de primer curso académico de G.S. y los de segundo curso (que han cursado la asignatura de Formación y Orientación Profesional Laboral –FOL–). Para ello, se contó con la participación de 177 alumnos pertenecientes a grados universitarios del campus de Melilla de la Universidad de Granada, (Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas, Facultad de Educación y Humanidades y Facultad de Enfermería), y de grados superior de institutos de educación secundaria de la ciudad, de ambos sexos y en edades comprendidas entre 18 y 50 años, a quienes se les facilitó la versión adaptada por Moriano et al. (2012) del Enterpreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE; De Noble, Jung y Ehrlich, 1999). Los resultados exponen que existe una diferencia estadísticamente significativa en la autoeficacia emprendedora percibida entre la muestra estudiada y los alumnos de las demás comunidades autónomas. Por otro lado, no se encontraron diferencias significativas en este constructo entre los estudiantes de G.U. y G.S.; tampoco entre los alumnos pertenecientes al primer y segundo curso del G.S.
Abstract The crises and the quick technological progress are changing the job market at high speeds. The mobility (search of employment in other countries), the reductions of staff to be competitive or the adaptation at new technologies are always making businesses improve. One of these changes is the necessary increase of small business owners. Morales, Giménez and Morales (2018) say that they are who create their own business; for Alda-Varas, Villardón-Gallego and Elexpuru-Albizuri (2012) entrepreneurship is vital to create new ideas and improve the economy of the society. This explains the importance of introducing actions to develop the entrepreneur. However, nobody starts a job if they don’t feel prepared to do it; and in the case of the entrepreneur this is called “entrepreneurial self-efficacy”. Morales et al. (2018) define entrepreneurial self-efficacy as the abilities and the aptitude, both cognitive and behavioral, and the beliefs, influenced by many factors (the experience and the emotions), which will determinate the success or not in the creation of a new business. Reynolds, Hay and Camp (1999) explain the meaning of entrepreneurship as the efforts to create businesses or new societies, like self-employment, the foundation of business organisms, or the extension of business already created, directed by one person, a team or an establishment. Enterprising is not a static quality, but a process (Alda-Varas et al., 2012) in constant change. The small business owner passes through a series of periods in which he or she develops his qualities. Summarized, this process has four periods (Alda-Varas et al., 2012) start, institutionalization, decentralization and conglomerate or social cohesion, each involving different functions and tasks. There is a series of characteristics (competences) associated with the self-employment which can forge success in the future: being a persistent person, having passion, determination, farsightedness, flexibility and good communication skills. Besides the abilities and the attitudes quoted that can be denominated “interior factors”, there is another set of factors that influence in the success of the small business owner: these are the economic, cultural and social circumstances. It is worth asking at this stage if the current education system helps mould and create this entrepreneurial attitude, this perception of self-employment that motivates the students to consider creating their own business when they finish their studies. Since the education system presents two ways for the students to eventually join the work force (university and professional training), this begs the question if both of these ways are equally effective in developing entrepreneurial skills in the students. This article pretends to describe the perception of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy for the students of the university degree (U.D.) and the superior grade (S.G.) of professional training of the Autonomous City of Melilla, with the purpose to compare all the data with the rest of the autonomous communities of Spain and test two hypotheses: First hypothesis: students who have finalized S.G. will have a better perception of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy than students who have finished U.D. mainly due to the characteristics of the curriculum design. Second hypothesis: students in the 2nd course of S.G. (who have already taken the subject of Training and Vocational Guidance) will present a greater perception of entrepreneurial self-efficacy than those in the 1st course. A total of 177 subjects participated, belonging to both S.G. and .U.D., both sexes, and ages between 18 and 50 years old, who answered the scale Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE; De Noble, Jung y Ehrlich, 1999), in the adapted version by Moriano et al. (2012). Results show that there is a statistically significant difference between the entrepreneurial self-efficacy perceived in the sample studied and other peninsular students. On the other hand, no difference was found between U.D. and S.G. students.
