APPLYING THE THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR AMONG STUDENTS AT PREPARATORY LEVEL TO EXPLORE THE DETERMINANTS OF STUDENTS’ INTENTION, IS THERE ADIFFERENCE?

Attitudes, subject norms, perceived control, are the determinants of student's intension, inspired by the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the literature review, we found that examining the theory on universities students at preparatory-level is limited particularly on the Saudi Arabia context, the students at preparatory-level are considered in a level between the high school and college level, the objective of this study is to explore the intention of those students towards starting their own business. The authors were inspired from the study of (W. J. Aloulou, 2015). This study was conducted on 363 students in Saudi at University of Ha'il. Structured questionnaires were randomly distributed among students of preparatory-level in University of Hai'l, Saudi. Partial least square technical analysis is utilized to examine the proposed relationships. The result of study showed that attitudes and perceived control are significantly related to student's intension. However, we have found no relationship between subject norms and intention which contradict majority of previous studies. Furthermore, there are differences in response between male and female students. Worth mentioning, Majority of previous studies overlooked the importance of preparatory-level student's intention towards entrepreneurship. The striking feature of this study is an in-depth emphasis on exploring application of theory of planned behavior on preparatory level context. Moreover, to the best of authors' knowledge, this is a pioneer study that comprehensively examines the linkage of components of TPB with student entrepreneurial intension among preparatory-level students in Saudi.