Abstract
The objective of this paper is to look into the implementation of PBL in the teaching of engineering courses to enhance the students’ ability in soft skills. The importance of soft skills has been acknowledged in most occupations and many organizations make selection and performance evaluation decisions based in part on employees’ soft skills. Problem Based Learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that has the potential to harness students’ ability in soft skills. Thus, this study looks into the implementation of PBL at a private university in Malaysia based on the lecturers’ industry experience, teaching experience and the engineering program they are in. A set of questionnaire is given to 90 lecturers teaching engineering courses to gauge the extent to which PBL is employed by the lecturers. An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the mean scores of the two groups which were the lecturers with industry experience and the ones without industry experience on the teaching approaches employed by them. A one-way between-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) is conducted to explore the teaching methods employed by lecturers of different years of teaching experience and engineering programs. The analysis showed that 77.7 % of the lecturers prefer to employ problem-based learning (PBL) in their teaching of engineering courses. The results also revealed that the preference stayed constant in relation to the lecturers’ experience with the industry, years of teaching experience and the engineering program they are in. Thus, this illustrates that the lecturers prefer to employ student-cantered approach which lead to producing students with better soft skills like critical thinking. Similar patterns appeared in relations to the comparison by years of teaching experience, where lecturers with 6-10 years of teaching experience highly employed PBL. On the comparison by engineering program, lecturers from Chemical engineering (CE) program show the most frequently usage of PBL. The study also found that the soft skills that could be enhanced through PBL are critical thinking and problem solving skills, communication skills and teamwork skills.
Highlights
The main objectives of education are the holistic development of character and capabilities, the acquisition of specific skills, the realization of intellectual, physical and spiritual potential, and the training of human capital
problem-based learning (PBL) was adopted by many engineering programs as an approach to help students learn the skills required by the employers and to address many of the concerns that engineering graduates are lacking in of soft skills
The analysis showed that the teaching approach employed by the majority, which was about 69 (77.7 percent) of the lecturers was problem-based learning (PBL), followed by project-oriented problem-based learning approach (POPBL) employed by about 57 lecturers or 63.3 percent, project-based learning (PjBL) 60 percent or about 54 lecturers, cooperative learning was employed by about 53 or 58.9 percent and lastly the traditional approach, teacher-centred approach employed by 45.6 percent or 41 of the lecturers
Summary
The main objectives of education are the holistic development of character and capabilities, the acquisition of specific skills, the realization of intellectual, physical and spiritual potential, and the training of human capital. Higher education institutions must ensure that their teaching resources are in place, revamp programs and systems, and re-engineer learning processes to develop these attributes in all students. These initiatives signify the importance of teaching and learning in this transformation of education system in Malaysia. Graduates have the more reason to improve themselves in the soft skill areas and be ready for an upswing in the job market This was because there were still job openings for entry-level positions for fresh graduates but the competition was tough, graduates who were equipped with substantial skills, knowledge and the right attitude to survive in any crisis would have high chances to get the jobs. This implied that graduates were able to secure jobs if they possessed good soft skills (Beagon & Niall, 2015; Hamidah, Yuriani & Palupi, 2016; Othman et al, 2017)
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