2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In engineering education, developing entrepreneurial competencies is crucial for preparing professionals to thrive in dynamic, uncertain, and highly demanding environments. Among these competencies, persuasive communication and the cultivation of support networks are particularly salient, as they expand opportunities, mobilize resources, influence key stakeholders, and create collaborative contexts that accelerate innovation. However, there remains limited evidence on how these capabilities develop in fully online learning environments—especially in programs designed for working professionals—where time constraints, digital interaction patterns, and heterogeneous prior experiences shape instructional design and learning outcomes. This study contributes to the discussion by analyzing the development of persuasion and support–network–building competencies that enable effective networking among engineering students enrolled in the course Innovation and Entrepreneurship Workshop I, which is delivered entirely online within a degree-completion program in Chile. The methodological design is quantitative and descriptive, and incorporates three sources of evidence: (i) a validated questionnaire to measure entrepreneurial competencies (Personal Entrepreneurial Competencies, PECs) administered as a pre- and post-test; (ii) the score for a deliverable assessed with a rubric specifically designed to measure persuasion and the building of support networks. The sample comprised 44 participants. Preliminary results show participants report moderate-to-high perceived levels pre-test in opportunity seeking, networks, and self-confidence. However, self-reported skills (pre- and post-test) are not significantly linked to authentic task performance, as measured by the rubric and overall grade, indicating a mismatch between self-perception and actual performance. In addition, individual gains (Δ = post − pre) do not show a monotonic pattern across performance levels, suggesting that perceived improvement does not necessarily translate into higher-quality deliverables. The pre–post analyses show a differentiated pattern across competencies. Opportunity seeking exhibits a statistically significant increase, whereas persuasion/support networks shows no meaningful perceptual change, and self-confidence displays only marginal variation. These findings suggest that online, time-limited interventions may more easily change opportunity perceptions, like recognizing needs, than relational skills requiring ongoing interaction, feedback, and practice. At the same time, the strong convergence between rubric scores and the overall task grade supports the internal coherence of the performance assessment and strengthens the interpretation of the observed self-report–performance misalignment. Overall, these results provide actionable guidance for online entrepreneurship courses serving working adults: prioritize authentic tasks with observable evidence, use dual assessment (self-report plus performance), and target feedback and scaffolding toward persuasion and networking-related behaviors through iterative practice cycles and structured interaction opportunities.