ISSN: 2222-6990
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This paper focuses on the training of selected soft skills among higher education students. The call for such focus was guided by the growing Graduate Employability (GE) demands from the 21st century industries and the trending competencies as documented in ‘The Future of Jobs Report 2018’ by World Economic Forum. In the investigation, the students’ perspective became central in interpreting the current instructional practices in the higher education institutes. The training of a selected set of soft skills based on the Critical Thinking Theory namely; analyzing, information seeking, logical reasoning and transforming knowledge, was the scope of the investigation. Central to the scope of the investigation is the respondents’ perceptions of their instructors’ instructional practices. Hence, a quantitative research design was chosen resulting in the administration of a set of questionnaire to 110 students in a selected faculty in one of the public universities in Malaysia. A descriptive statistical analysis was done in analyzing the data. The salient findings include a medium range of mean scores across the instructional practices of the instructors across the training of most of the soft skills as perceived by the respondents. Specifically, the instructors were seen to be average at training logical reasoning (M= 3.48) and transforming knowledge (M= 3.49). The instructors were perceived to be slightly better at training the respondents analyzing (M= 3.66) and information seeking (M= 3.74). Several recommendations were highlighted including the need for the instructors to be more comfortable with scientific data and language in promoting the training of transforming knowledge skill and to encourage research-based activities in promoting the training of logical reasoning. Based on the recommendations, it is expected that the instructors themselves could consider relevant innovations in their instructional practices as an effort to produce graduates with the identified soft skills. Additionally, policy makers and curriculum developers could also benefit from the findings of the present study.
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In-Text Citation: (Majid et al., 2020)
To Cite this Article: Majid, F. A., Zaini, M. H., Shafie, S., & Shafie, N. H. (2020). Soft Skills Instructional Practices: An Investigation from The Perspective of The Immediate Stakeholders. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 10(14), 49–60.
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