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Malaysian employers demand a high proficiency in soft skills. They are looking beyond academic results when interviewing new staff, hence undergraduates acquiring soft skills is an important issue from different perspectives: the employers, the education system and the students themselves. Despite this emphasis, potential employees, according to em...
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Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a learning method considered to be capable of changing the students' perception in facing the challenges of the 21st century. This study was aimed to improve soft skills in the form of critical thinking, motivation, and group dynamics and hard skills in the form of psychomotor ability by applying PBL. This study was...
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Citations
... Malaysian employers demand high proficiency in soft skills. They look beyond academic results when interviewing new staff; hence, undergraduates acquiring soft skills is an important issue from different perspectives: employers, the education system, and the students themselves (David & Saeipoor, 2018). Despite this emphasis, potential employees, according to employers, lack soft skills. ...
... Considering the importance of this issue, this paper's objective is to comprehend and highlight the perception of undergraduates of the soft skills programs in five research universities in Malaysia. The information presented in this paper is obtained from a survey conducted by distributing 600 questionnaires to undergraduates in Malaysia's five research universities to determine their understanding of soft skills and how these skills are taught and evaluated in these universities (David & Saeipoor, 2018). The initial findings show that there is a strong awareness of the importance of soft skills among undergraduates, but the students are not clear about the methods of teaching and evaluating these skills in different courses in different universities (David & Saeipoor, 2018). ...
... The information presented in this paper is obtained from a survey conducted by distributing 600 questionnaires to undergraduates in Malaysia's five research universities to determine their understanding of soft skills and how these skills are taught and evaluated in these universities (David & Saeipoor, 2018). The initial findings show that there is a strong awareness of the importance of soft skills among undergraduates, but the students are not clear about the methods of teaching and evaluating these skills in different courses in different universities (David & Saeipoor, 2018). The results illustrate a need for universities, in general, to develop strategies to enhance soft skills teaching and learning and make undergraduates aware of how these skills are evaluated. ...
Education holds a paramount and prioritized status within any nation, notably in Malaysia, where it is viewed as the key to progress and national prosperity. However, in contemporary times, education has become a secondary choice for the younger generation, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Therefore, the decision to continue education or enter the workforce has become a heatedly debated issue in the current era of globalization, presenting challenges and dilemmas, particularly for those who have recently completed their studies at the Sijil Peperiksaan Malaysia (SPM) level. This paper delves into four issues contributing to the dilemma and challenges, namely (i) the diminishing relevance of the concept of continuing education; (ii) uncertainties in the economic sector often acting as barriers for the youth to pursue further studies; (iii) an individual's interest in academic pursuits—an issue not to be underestimated; and (iv) graduate unemployment within the country causing distress among graduates due to a lack of job guarantees after studying, leading the youth to fear pursuing higher education. This literature-oriented research applies a comprehensive reading technique, systematically analyzing relevant articles on graduate careers to address the four highlighted issues. The findings indicate (a) a phenomenon referring to the notably low starting salaries for fresh graduates, serving as a measure of a graduate's potential based on the study period; it becomes irrelevant as a student's interest in working independently, such as venturing into small-scale business, surpasses the desire to pursue higher education; (b) Financial issues within families prevent them from covering their children's educational expenses, exacerbated by workforce reductions involving family breadwinners covering school-related expenses; (c) Lack of interest in academics leads individuals to immerse themselves in the workforce. Therefore, education or learning is crucial in our lives; and (d) Work experience is emphasized by employers when seeking employment. These findings prove that the given issues pose dilemmas and challenges, causing the youth to opt for work over further education. The direction concerning the issue of continuing education or entering the workforce for high school graduates is related to education, serving as a benchmark for a rapidly developing nation. However, from the perspective of the younger generation, education should be understood as an important bridge of knowledge to ensure a bright life based on intellectual, emotional, and physical skills.
... Chowdhury and Miah (2016) highlighted that universities today collaborate more frequently with employers and other groups of external stakeholders to identify relevant skills needed for graduates and accordingly, revise the curricula and pedagogies. Soft skills, or also known as non-academic skills or generic skills, are vital for university graduates for employability (David & Saeipoor, 2018;Gruzdev, Kuznetsova, Tarkhanova, & Kazakova, 2018;Okolie, Nwosu, & Mlanga, 2019;Tang, 2019), and it is not an exception in Malaysia (Md-Ali, Shaffie, & Yusof, 2016;Noah & Abdul Aziz, 2020). Soft skills are those individual characteristics that affect a person's employability (Fahimirad, Nair, Kotamjani, Mahdinezhad, & Feng, 2019). ...
... Both Tang (2019) and Md-Ali et al. (2016) stated that the lecturers play a pivotal role in designing and delivering suitable course or lesson to inculcate the soft skills in university students successfully. In other words, more meaningful and effective pedagogy is required (David & Saeipoor, 2018). This paper presents a strategy and the process to teach the soft skills among university students with the involvement of external stakeholders and the application of experiential learning theory. ...
The participation of external stakeholders in pedagogical activities in higher education has increased in recent years, and this is because such involvement can potentially improve student learning outcomes. However, the strategies and processes have yet to be adequately explored and documented, especially in the context of the Malaysian university. This paper presents a case regarding how the external stakeholders were involved in the design and implementation of an experiential learning project for an elective module in Diploma programmes of Raffles University, Malaysia based on a pedagogical model. This model consists of three major phases: (1.) initiation and design; (2.) execution; and (3.) evaluation and review. The roles of external stakeholders and the responsibilities of lecturers in each phase were discussed. In addition, students' learning experiences and their reflections on the experiences were also described along with the discussion. This paper concludes that the developed pedagogical model may serve as an effective means to engage with external stakeholders in planning and delivering meaningful lessons for authentic learning at university level.
... This includes real-life cases or scenarios in the English courses which provide learners with the required workplace skills. Second, Gopala et al. (2012), David and Saeipoor (2018), Ali and Aireen (2012), and Singh (2019) have recommended a need for a new syllabus design that emphasises on the development of soft skills such as interpersonal skills, communication skills, negotiation skills and other vital skills inherent in communication. These courses can increase the future graduates' motivation and productivity as well as preparing them for a more dynamic, loyal and positive work environment. ...
This study aims to examine (a) the needs and usage of English language by Industrial Trainees at their workplace, (b) the challenges they faced, and (c) the relevance of Diploma in English courses in a public university in Malaysia to their language and communication needs at the workplace. The sample consists of 55 final year Diploma in English students who had just completed their three months of industrial training at various organisations. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study indicated that English was widely used in the organisations and all the four language skills were required in conducting various tasks at the workplace. However, most of the trainees experienced difficulty in making online ticketing and online hotel reservations, holding briefings, attending to clients’ concerns and complaints, negotiating with clients to make a deal, making oral presentations, contacting with other firms, preparing the filing system, preparing flyers/brochures/posters/advertisements and preparing accounts. It is thus suggested that the essential courses especially concerning public speaking and interpersonal communication skills to be taught before the students underwent their internship. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications. Higher education institutions that offer similar courses can make use of these findings in revising the program in line with current demands of education and the workforce. Besides, the lecturers can also rethink the way how specific courses should be taught to meet the students’ needs and allow them to explore meaningful learning through experiential learning.
... Ministry of Human Resource Malaysia [1] reported that manufacturing industry recorded 39 percent new job placement which was the biggest amount of new employment generated compared to other sectors. Manufacturing sector was the second highest contributor in terms of value as reported by Malaysia Gross Domestic Product [2]. The main sector in manufacturing assembly is Electrical & Electronics (E&E) sector which accounted for 24.5 percent of the manufacturing industry based on the report published by the Statistics Department of Malaysia on May 15, 2013. ...
The roles of factory technicians who are responsible and accountable for advance equipment maintenance and uptime in the E&E factory has intensified enormously. Substantial researches on turnover issues focused on white collar workers instead of blue collar workers has instigated the need of the study. There is also needs to identify factors which influenced factory technician's turnover because the training required to develop skillful and competent technicians is costly and lengthy. The hypothesis was tested and validated via quantitative statistical analysis which identified the influential factors and determined the connection between independent variables and turnover intention as dependent variable. Descriptive statistic, reliability test, mean comparison, and correlation test were utilized in the analysis. The results indicated that career growth, discriminatory treatment and further education are influential factors and have significant association with turnover intentions. The most influential and significant factor was career growth followed by discriminatory treatment, and further education was the least significant factor. The outcome of this research was used in developing retention plans and strategies to retain the factory technicians who play crucial role in manufacturing industry performance.
... Namun kekurangan kemahiran insaniah menjadi penyumbang ke arah ketidakbolehpasaran graduan (Ting et al. 2017;Truong et al. 2018). Kemahiran insaniah bukan sekadar keperluan kepada graduan tetapi menjadi keutamaan kepada majikan masa kini (David & Saeipoor 2018). Majikan mahukan pekerja yang serba boleh yang mempunyai pengetahuan dan kemahiran dalam sesuatu bidang kerja dan juga memiliki kemahiran insaniah di samping pengalaman kerja (Rosli et al. 2017;Bishop 2017). ...
Soft skills are generally interpreted as a person's skill in building good relationships with oneself and others, i.e. what is being said as intrapersonal skills and interpersonal skills. The element of soft skills should be available to an individual to meet the skills of every graduate. However recent statistics from the Ministry of Higher Education in its official website indicate that the number of graduates still unemployed is high. Therefore, this study aims to examine the level of soft skills among students of the Faculty of Technology and Information Science (FTSM) through activities conducted by each special interest group (SIG). There are 11 SIGs with various computing activities. Kirkpatrick's Assessment Model which contains four categories (reactions, learning, behavior and outcomes) is used to measure the achievement level of the soft skills of FTSM students. The results show that the four categories are in good level, with the overall level of FTSM student's soft skills in good category. The Kirkpatrick Assessment Model can be applied in evaluating the performance of a training or its equivalent.
... Researchers have looked at the problem from different perspectives. Most of the studies, some of which are briefly introduced below, have focused on the employers expressing their needs and demands, whereas some have looked at the problem from the perspective of universities and academics (David & Saeipoo, 2018). Only a few studies focused on Malaysian secondary students' needs or understanding of soft skills. ...
... Considerable research has been done at the university level (Supitcha, Cholticha, Sittipong, & Wannalak, 2014, Gibert, Tozer & Westoby, 2017, David & Saeipoo, 2018, such as teamwork skills; entrepreneurial skills and application of soft skills amongst teachers, coaches and others. However, limited studies have been carried out in relation to the lack of soft skills at the school level. ...
This study aimed to determine the influence of support from the school culture and classroom environment in improving soft skills amongst students. Moreover, the study explored different soft skills, school culture and classroom environments based on gender and type of schools. This study used a quantitative approach by using surveys to gather information. A total of 400 students from three different types of schools were chosen using random sampling. The three types of schools were National Secondary Schools, Religious Secondary Schools, and Technical and Vocational Secondary Schools around Selangor and Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Data were analysed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 18. Results confirmed the distinctions of the school culture and classroom environments with the soft skills based on the gender and type of schools. SEM analysis corroborated that the school culture and classroom environment contributed to the development of soft skills. Therefore, schools should come up with programs and approaches to improve the soft skills amongst the students to be proficient in various fields in parallel with the rapid growth of the world.
The 21st century is an era of creativity and cataclysmic transformation. India has a tremendous need for educated labourers. To enhance the necessary abilities of the teachers and students, the most effective techniques for teaching and learning must be found. To nurture long-lasting and employable abilities, there is a major need to switch pedagogy from fact-based traditional lecture to interactive education. Innovation in education process is now crucial to solving this issue. Adopting the numerous techniques and tactics described in the paper will assist in achieving the goal. The current paper discusses cutting-edge teaching strategies used in the nation's higher education institutions.
Sindh is a multilingual province in Pakistan where politics of language and clash of language ideologies have played a significant role. English is viewed as a language of power, and Urdu is generally considered as a symbol of national cohesion in Pakistan. In Sindh both these languages are used in official and educational domains In Sindh's language ecology, English occupies an important position. In addition to these two languages, Sindhi is widely spoken and is associated with Sindh's regional and ethnic consciousness. Pakistan's pivot to China policy is slowly impacting language policy and planning in Sindh. Politicians have started talking about making Chinese a compulsory subject from grade 6 onwards in Sindh's educational institutions. However, this language policy decision has met resistance from the English-speaking class, and the Urdu, Seraiki, and Sindhi speech communities who look at the imposition of Chinese language with distrust. The aim of this research article is to investigate how language teachers and students in Sindh react to the Chinese language policy and planning. A survey questionnaire was sent to participants to explore their perceptions of imposing the Chinese language in Sindh. 33 participants aged between 20 to 40 responded to 14 questions included in the survey. Extracts taken from their responses were codified into broader themes and qualitative analysis was carried out using Philipson's (1992) imperialism concept. The findings showed that the pro-Chinese class is struggling to replace English in an ecology of language where speakers of minor languages are already resisting the hegemony of major languages.
