Comprehensive evaluation of college students’ engineering entrepreneurship ability based on improved TOPSIS model

Abstract

Marked by artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, revolutionary biotechnology, etc., the fourth scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution are accelerated. In this new situation, China’s higher engineering education is increasingly closely related to the Industrial Revolution, and it is urgent to train new engineering talents with innovation and entrepreneurship abilities, cross-border integration abilities and comprehensive quality to meet the needs of economic and social development. Entrepreneurial engineering talents have become an important force in promoting industrial progress and social development. Training entrepreneurial engineering talents takes engineering practice training as the driving force of teaching reform. To conduct more scientific and effective evaluation research on college students’ engineering entrepreneurship ability, this study proposes the TOPSIS method based on combining CRITIC and entropy weight methods. It constructs a comprehensive evaluation index system of college students’ engineering entrepreneurship ability composed of 21 indexes from four dimensions, including self-motivation ability, team management ability, technical management ability and market management ability. A questionnaire based survey was conducted among 360 college students in 6 Zhejiang Province, China universities. The results show that the improved TOPSIS model proposed in this study can make weight determination more scientific and reasonable. The improved TOPSIS model can effectively distinguish the level of engineering entrepreneurship ability of different college students. The engineering entrepreneurship ability of the students in the six universities is generally at the middle level. The years of engineering education significantly affect technical management ability (F= 4.455, p= 0.004) and market management ability (F= 19.174, p= 0.000) at a 1% level. The research conclusion has important reference value for developing engineering entrepreneurship’s curriculum and practical activity systems based on the ability structure, constructing the entrepreneurship teacher system, and strengthening the cross-departmental cooperation, coordination and integration of engineering entrepreneurship education in schools.