Student Attitudes Toward Entrepreneurship and the Relative Importance of Firms at Gulu University, 2026: Baseline Distributions and Short-Term Change After an Educational Event

This study examines the baseline distributions and the short-term changes in responses to three statements concerning entrepreneurship and the relative importance of large and small firms. The statements were administered before and after the Entrepreneurship and Leadership Conference held at Gulu University in September 2026 as part of the African Forum for Development and Innovation multi-university longitudinal survey. One hundred and two participants completed both waves of the anonymous voluntary questionnaire. Prior to the conference, 93.1 percent of respondents agreed that entrepreneurship is important for personal and societal progress, 37.3 percent agreed that large corporations are much more important than small companies, and 18.6 percent agreed that entrepreneurs seek only profit and give too little in return. After the conference the corresponding percentages of Yes responses were 99.0 percent, 42.2 percent, and 17.6 percent. The share of respondents who rejected the claim that entrepreneurs seek only profit rose from 61.8 percent to 77.5 percent, and the share who rejected the claim that large corporations are much more important than small companies rose from 32.4 percent to 48.0 percent. These results indicate that participants already held strongly positive views of the importance of entrepreneurship and that the event was associated with further consolidation of those views together with a clear reduction in the proportion who regarded entrepreneurs as purely profit-seeking or who regarded large corporations as markedly superior to small companies. The findings constitute the first university-level case in a planned multi-year series that will apply the same three statements at additional institutions.