Contextualised action learning framework in developing entrepreneurial skills for civil engineering students

Abstract

The changing needs of workforce and technology have demanded future engineering graduates to acquire entrepreneurial attributes to complement their mastery of scientific and technological disciplines. For future civil engineering graduates specifically, the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) required future civil engineering graduates to have a sound understanding of the business environment influence towards the process of industrial decision-making in design, manufacturing and application. This requirement emphasizes on the necessity for the future civil engineering graduates to acquire entrepreneurial skills. Therefore, in view of this changing needs as well as the requirement by the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC), this study was conducted to develop an entrepreneurial skill framework of action learning for civil engineering students. The scope of the study was to identify the prominent entrepreneurial skill set for civil engineering students. The objectives of the study were; to identify the prominent entrepreneurial skill set relevant to civil engineering students, to determine the salient factor that can significantly influence the acquirement of the prominent entrepreneurial skill set and to explore how the salient factor can influence the acquirement of the prominent entrepreneurial skill set. Convergent mixed method design was adopted where both quantitative and qualitative researches were involved in the data collection. The findings from this study demonstrated that the prominent entrepreneurial skill set relevant to civil engineering students was different than the general entrepreneurial skill set reported by previous studies. In addition, the findings also demonstrated that the pattern of entrepreneurial skill acquired by the practicing civil engineers is significantly different compared to the pattern of entrepreneurial skills acquired by civil engineering lecturers and students. The significant difference was due to the salient factor that promoted the acquirement of the entrepreneurial skill set. In the context relevant to civil engineering students, the findings of this study showed that the factor of constraint or limitation was the salient factor that promoted the acquirement of the prominent entrepreneurial skill set. The factor of constraint or limitation demonstrated by the finding of this study is a rich learning source that contributes to entrepreneurial learning which consequently leading to entrepreneurial skills acquirement. Based on these findings, a contextualised framework of action learning in entrepreneurial skill development especially for civil engineering students was proposed. Thus, it is concluded that the development of entrepreneurial skill for targeted group of engineering students required the consideration of specific context. Nonetheless, this study is limited to the context of entrepreneurial skill development for civil engineering students only.