Individual entrepreneurial orientation in Spanish university students: The role of critical thinking disposition and intellectual styles in entrepreneurship education

This study proposes a model that links students' disposition toward critical thinking (DTCT), Type I intellectual styles (oriented toward creativity, cognitive complexity, and autonomy) and Type II intellectual styles (oriented toward structure, conformity, and rule adherence), and individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO) in higher education. A cross-sectional survey was administered to 208 students enrolled in entrepreneurship-related courses at a Spanish public university, and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results show that DTCT is a strong positive predictor of IEO; Type I intellectual styles are positively related to both DTCT and IEO, whereas Type II styles display negative relations with entrepreneurial orientation. DTCT improves the effect of Type I styles on IEO, but not with Type II styles. These findings suggest that strengthening DTCT is a central pathway through which entrepreneurship education can enhance students' IEO. The study argues that entrepreneurship courses should explicitly treat DTCT and IEO as learning outcomes and intentionally adapt tasks, scaffolding, and assessment to diverse intellectual style profiles in order to support more inclusive and opportunity-oriented entrepreneurial learning.