The Relationship between Employability Skills and Self-Efficacy of Students With Learning Disabilities In Vocational Stream

Abstract

Nowadays, the unemployment among special needs students with learning disabilities is getting worse in Malaysia. Societies are always not confident of the employability skills of people with special needs, as the former do not believe that the latter could work efficiently. Since they are often associated with low self-confidence, the capabilities of people with special needs are often in doubt, and their self-efficacy is also open to question. Self-efficacy is included in the environmental factors that contribute to the degree of skilfulness. Therefore, this study aims to explore the level of employability skills and self-efficacy of students with learning disabilities, and determine the relationship between the two variables. This quantitative survey research was conducted at the Indahpura Special Education Vocational Secondary School, Kulai, Johor. About 60 students from four courses were recruited for the purposed of this study. An instrument was adapted with minor modifications from the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) to study the employability skills and The General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) to study the self-efficacy. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science Version 19.0 (SPSS 19) to obtain the frequency, mean, standard deviation, percentage and correlation between the variables. The results show that employability skills and self-efficacy of the students with special needs are at a moderate level. The findings of the study reveal that there is a strong positive relationship between self-efficacy and the student’s employability skills. In conclusion, special education students with learning disabilities have room for improving their employability skills, and they can do it through these avenues: attend entrepreneurship programmes, participate in community services, and undergo self-improvement courses as well as practical training in relevant agencies. Societies are duty-bound to provide continual guidance to the students with special needs so that they can be a useful, and competitive work force to serve the country.