THE FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVING THE CONTENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION, WITH THE APPROACH OF TRANSFERRING ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS

Abstract

A framework has been proposed to improve the content of civil engineering undergraduate education with a focus on transferring entrepreneurial skills. Using a mixed-exploratory research method, 11 university experts were interviewed and a conceptual model with 9 components (ecosystem, tests and evaluations, structure, incentives, general/theoretical courses, projects (structural and road design), internship, complementary courses and Kehad, extracurricular activities) was developed. Based on the sub-components, solutions have been presented for improving the content of civil engineering undergraduate education by transferring entrepreneurial skills. Then, based on the model, a questionnaire including 35 Likert-scale questions and 2 ordinal questions was designed and distributed to a sample of working civil engineers (experts). The obtained data were analyzed with the Friedman test, and the questions were ranked according to the priority of the experts. Finally, based on the top 20 priorities, suggestions were made to policymakers, professors, entrepreneurs, and students. For example, visiting construction sites as extracurricular activities was the suggestion of professors and the first priority of experts, also, the lesson proposal under the title “Innovative Project” was one of the 20 primary priorities of experts.

Keywords

• entrepreneurship education friedman test engineering education civil engineering exploratory mixed method