Entrepreneurial education and intention: the moderating role of major identity in a TPB case study on English majors

Entrepreneurial education (EE) indices in China reveal that liberal arts institutions, particularly those focus on foreign language studies, tend to show less effective outcomes and lower entrepreneurial intention (EI) among students. While research on EI has grown, few studies have focused on liberal arts students such as foreign language majors. Prior findings suggest that students’ EI varies by major, and Social Identity Theory highlights the importance of major identity (MI) in shaping career development. However, the relationship between EE, MI, and EI remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by integrating MI into the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework to examine its moderating role in the relationship between EE and EI among English-major undergraduates at Sichuan International Studies University (SISU). Adopting a quantitative case study design, the study used stratified random sampling and collected 465 valid responses. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to test mediation effects and hierarchical multiple regression to examine moderation.