Abstract:

As labour markets rapidly evolve, higher education institutions face increasing pressure to develop competencies aligned with the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs skills framework. Experiential learning approaches, such as hackathons, have emerged as promising pedagogical tools to foster these transversal competencies. This study examines students’ perceptions of a hackathon implemented in professional higher education programmes at a Portuguese polytechnic institution among non-STEAM courses. Survey data collected from participating students assessed expectations, perceived digital competence, and anticipated development of key competencies aligned with the World Economic Forum framework. Results indicate that students perceive hackathons as effective environments for developing analytical and creative thinking, technological literacy, resilience, and curiosity for lifelong learning. The findings highlight the potential of hackathons as innovative learning laboratories that strengthen the alignment between higher education pedagogies and the competencies required in the future labour market.

Acknowledgement:
This work was supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P. under the project UNIAG UID/04752/2025 (DOI 10.54499/UID/04752/2025).

Keywords:

Hackathons, Future Skills, Experiential Learning, Higher Education, World Economic Forum Skills, Entrepreneurial Competencies.