Abstract
Poor mastery of technical communication skills has affected the employability of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) graduates. This has arisen from the lack of communication between TVET institutions and the industry when designing a curriculum for technical communication skills development. In Malaysia, little emphasis is given to developing this skill. Therefore, the current study seeks to develop a technical communication pedagogical model (TCPM) by identifying the pertinent objective, content of learning, method of delivery and assessment method of TCPM, and the effect of the perceived importance of English language proficiency on the relationships of the pertinent curriculum components of TCPM. A survey questionnaire was developed and validated for content validation by seven experts from local industry and TVET institutions. A total of 205 English language instructors in Malaysian vocational colleges (MVC) were selected using a stratified random sampling method and responded to the questionnaire. Their responses were analyzed using the partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Analysis of reliability, discriminant and convergent validity, significance of relationship, predictive accuracy (R2), predictive relevance (Q2), effect size (f2), and mediation analysis was conducted to test the model. The overall findings indicated that all constructs have a positive and significant effect on perceived importance of TCPM (Objective: p = 0.012, t = 2.249, content of learning: p = 0.032, t = 1.852, assessment method: p = 0.000, t = 4.196), except for method of delivery (p = 0.301, t = 0.522). The coefficient of determination level is moderate (R2 = 0.526). Analysis of effect size (f2) indicates a small effect size for all constructs (objective: f2 = 0.032, content of learning: f2 = 0.027, assessment method: f2 = 0.116), except for method of delivery with an effect size of 0.002. In addition, this model achieved acceptable predictive relevance (Q2 = 0.316). On the other hand, the mediation analysis indicates that the perceived importance of English language proficiency only functions as a complementary partial mediator for content of learning and assessment method construct. In short, the TCPM model includes having the relevant objectives, content of learning, method of delivery and assessment method for implementing technical communication in MVC, components which are less emphasized in the current curriculum. It is hoped that, with its implementation in the MVC, graduate employability can be enhanced.
Highlights
Over the past few years, the unemployment rate has increased from 3.1% in 2015 to 3.4% in 2016 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2017) and has remained stagnant until 2018 (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2018)
Until October 2019, the unemployment rate has dropped to 3.2% (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2019)
Technical communication reflects the actual communicative experiences that happened in the industry (Brinkman and van der Geest, 2003; Reaves, 2004; Rus, 2014)
Summary
Even the developed ones, are facing increasing unemployment rate due to the global shift of the current market from manufacturing to the service sector (Dobbs and Madgavkar, 2014). In their study, they predicted a potential shortage of 38–40 million high-skill workers and a surplus of 38–40 million low-skill workers, in the near future. Until October 2019, the unemployment rate has dropped to 3.2% (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2019). A detailed analysis based on the available statistics until 2013 (in Table 1), revealed that the unemployment rate among graduates with tertiary education qualification has increased from 17.43% in 2010 to 25.81% in 2013
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