Nurturing Entrepreneurship Skills, Creativity and Communication Skills: An Exploratory Study on Omani Arab EFL Learners

Abstract

To prepare students to face the world of work, universities should ensure that engineers graduating from their campuses demonstrate entrepreneurial skills and the ability to understand market forces alongside domain knowledge. This exploratory study focused on the design, application, and evaluation of a research-based coursework assignment in a business communication course offered to undergraduate level engineering students at a university college in Oman. The assignment aimed at developing students’ entrepreneurship skills, basic business concepts, creativity, critical thinking, communication skills, and research skills. Student perceptions on the role of assignment in developing the above-mentioned skills and in influencing their affective domain were gathered using a survey questionnaire carrying closed and open-ended questions. The data were analyzed using SPSS and frequency tables were generated. The results of the survey revealed that the students enjoyed working on the assignment and showed strong agreement for most of the items on the role of assignment in developing their skills and knowledge. The assignment model used in this study can support teachers in designing assessments that target the development of entrepreneurial skills alongside other meta-skills and can help solve the problem of unemployment in due course.