This paper is part of a bigger research project and focuses on issues related to soft skills and teaching professional training. The research project is on developing an integrated soft skills training module for teacher education program in Malaysian Public Universities. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of soft skills that has been integrated in teaching professional training from the novice teachers' perspectives. The issues of unemployment and lack of quality among teachers are associated with the notion that teachers have not adequately acquired employability skills and soft skills during their training in universities. At the preliminary stage, 15 novice teachers who have graduated from five identified public universities for not more than three years were interviewed. There are a total of three focus group interview cycles. The interview protocol consists of seven soft skills are: communication, critical and problem solving, team work, life-long learning and management of information, entrepreneurship, ethics, moral and professional, and leadership. The findings showed that six out of seven soft skills were perceived as important and relevant to their teaching tasks except entrepreneurship skill. However, these novice teachers were concerned about the insufficient soft skills acquired from teaching training in order to support them in their work place. Since soft skills are important prerequisite in shaping an individual's personality, therefore it is recommended that teacher educators should utilize the integrated soft skills training module during teaching professional training.
Leadership soft skills are very beneficial for administering organization effectively and efficiently. The aim of this study is to measure the development of leadership soft skills among educational administrators using the guidelines. The school administrators need to complement hard and soft skills while working with organizational staff and community. A total of 477 school administrators and teachers are involved in this study. In addition, there are 15 school administrators and teachers who have participated in a focus group discussion. This study utilized mixed mode method, comprised of quantitative and qualitative design. Quantitative method using questionnaire and qualitative method using interview protocol to obtain data. The statistical data analysis that employed in this study including percentage, mean value, and standard deviation meanwhile content analysis is used to analyse qualitative data. The results of this study indicated that the level of leadership soft skills among educational administrators is high. This finding is further supported by qualitative findings revealed that educational administrators have to improve their communication skills, using technology to monitor and evaluate teachers' teaching strategies, promote team work spirit and healthy interpersonal relationship. In conclusion, educational administrators' leadership soft skills should be highly adapted in their administration in order to ensure the positive change of the teachers' attitudes and behaviours.
This research aimed to investigate the influence of teacher competency factors and students' life skills on student learning achievement. The student learning achievement from the O-Net (Educational Testing Institute, 2002) found to be lower than national average score. A total of 100 teachers and 2,967 students under the Office of Bueng Kan Primary Educational Service Area are involved in this study using multi-stage sampling method. This study employed quantitative method survey design. The data was analyzed by utilizing descriptive and inferential statistic, namely mean value, standard deviation and Hierarchical Linear Model. The result revealed that the overall teachers' competency level and students' life skills are at high level (M = 4.18, S.D. = 0.31) and (M = 3.97; S.D. = 0.36) respectively. According to the fixed effect, researchers found that the independent variable teacher competency factor that is curriculum and learning management has positive effect while self-development has a negative effect at 0.05 significant level, the regression coefficient was 0.14625 and -0.14655 accordingly. Besides, morality and ethics in professional code of conduct has influenced on the analytical thinking, decision making, and creative problem solving at significant level of 0.05, the regression coefficient was -0.24505. All of the two independent variables related to teacher competency, can jointly explain the variance of learning achievement for 6.10 percent. In conclusion, school administrators should promote teacher competency and student life skills since these two variables have successfully contributed in student learning achievement.
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