Running

head:

A

STUDY

ON

HOW

IIUM

STUDENTS

PERCEIVE

THE 1

EFFECTIVENESS A study on how IIUM students perceive the effectiveness of extracurricular activities on building soft skills.

‘Izzati Khairunnisa Binti Nordin 1117368 Imraatul Farihah Binti Bunyamin 1110182 Department on Information Technology Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology International Islamic University Malaysia

English for Academic Writing LE4000 Section 12 Supervisor: Madam Alina Fazilah Binti Fazi

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 2

A study on how IIUM students perceive the effectiveness of extracurricular activities on building soft skills. Being students, it is a must for them to take the advantage of all opportunities and experience a university life. Extracurricular activities are the platform for students to gain and sharpen university life. The research is designed to investigate effectiveness of extracurricular activities in building soft skills among IIUM undergraduates. Online questionnaires were used to collect data from 30 respondents who were randomly selected. This questionnaire was distributed to determine the frequency of students participates in extracurricular activities and to know ranking of soft skills acquired. The preliminary results show that about 26 respondents participated in extracurricular activities and all of respondents know the importance of soft skills in future. Moreover, two soft skills; moral and professional ethics and teamwork, were ranked as Level 4 and 5 respectively. The conclusion can be drawn that undergraduates knew variety of soft skills can be acquired and the importance of it for their future. However, university should encourage more entrepreneurship programs since it received the lowest ranked from the findings. Keywords: extracurricular activities, soft skills, IIUM undergraduates

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 3

Life in university should be beyond an academic experience. Students should take the advantage of all opportunities around them to enjoy an extensive experience during their university life. Extracurricular activities are the platform for students to gain and sharpen their soft skills. Sometimes students have limited chances to develop or utilize their soft skills in class. There is wide range of cultural clubs, community services, and leisure clubs available in International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Besides the main co-curricular courses which are compulsory for every student like leadership course and parenting course, students can also join other clubs which organize by IIUM students. The issue has grown in importance of extracurricular activities when course grade and course work often inadequate indicators of the skills needed for success in today’s reality. Roselina Shakir (2009) stated that, “employers give criticism that graduates are generally academically proficient but lack of soft skills” (p.309). Other than that, job market demands for more competitive skills on graduates to satisfy the growing of globalization. Globalization refers to integration of several sectors in today’s world leads to a necessity for higher level skills and techniques. An extracurricular activity is used to describe extra activities that can be done by the students in an institution that can help them enhance their soft skills such as communication skills and teamwork. The Malaysian Institute of Higher Learning interprets soft skills as incorporating aspects of generic skills which include non-academic skills such as leadership, teamwork, communication, and lifelong learning (Roselina Shakir, 2009). Duncan (2010) stated that 86% of employers consider good communication skills and team-working to be important and many of them are not satisfied that graduates can express themselves effectively.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 4

Astin(1985) theorized that student learning is a function of student’s level of academic and social involvement with the institutional environment. Students are facing a big challenge to get a career where there are many types of requirement list by company. Therefore, in order for them to be accepted by one’s company, it is an advantage for them to have as many as soft skills and enhance employability chances. The literature covers a wide variety of soft skills; there are seven types of soft skills presented repeatedly throughout the literature reviewed. According to Roselina Shakir (2009) and Abdul Malek Abdul Karim et al (2012), Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia specified seven generic skills that need to be inculcated by the university students namely communication skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, lifelong learning and information management skills, teamwork skills, entrepreneurial skills, moral and professional ethics skills, and leadership skills. The literature has revealed that soft skills are important skills that every student should acquire to secure employment after graduation. Hence, extracurricular activity is one of the platforms for students to enhance their soft skills. Roselina Shakir (2009) claimed that companies are continually seeking employees with highly qualified technically, and also possess leadership and communication skills. This is supported by Abdul Malek Abdul Karim et al (2012) who suggest that soft skills which employers emphasize on including communication, interpersonal leadership and teamwork skills. It can be argued that the high CGPA that indicates the students’ ability in their studies should come together with high level of soft skills. Therefore, it is necessary for students to involve in formal or informal activities to build their soft skills.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 5

Jing Wang and Jonathan Shiveley (2008) found that extracurricular activities have a positive impact on the academic performance of students at Sacramento State whereby students achieved much higher rates of retention and graduation, better GPAs, and higher good standing rates when they engaged in any of extracurricular activity. So, participating in extracurricular activities will not lower the academic performance, but instead it helps students to persist on their study and boosted their progress toward graduation. Next, research conducted by Aimao Zhang (2012) justified that, “IT education must prepare future IT professionals with hard and soft skills to communicate with end users, to resolve conflicts, and to bring different functions together toward a common goal.” (p. 165). This notion proposed by Aimao is agreed by Li-Tze Lee and Tien-Tse Lee (2011) where they concluded that, “Teachers must equip themselves with these skills in order to increase their employability.” (p. 148). Even though these two research paper focus on different area and conclusion, they agreed upon the scheme that hard and soft skills play a big role in career. Subsequently, the development of hard and soft skills examined by Aimao is group project can provide students with soft-skill training. On the other hand, Li-Tze and Tien-Tse considered that development of skills are based on five factors which are gender, age, teaching experience, educational level, and academic position. They agreed that quality in teamwork as the outcome gathered from those factors. Current situation beliefs that both researches are undeniably useful since many institutions use group project and factors proposed to develop teamwork skill as well as other hard and soft skills. So far, few researchers have been done on the significance of soft skills required by employers. Yet, there have been insufficient discussion on the effectiveness of extracurricular

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 6

activities in building soft skills. The research is designed to investigate effectiveness of extracurricular activities in building soft skills among IIUM undergraduates. The research questions for this paper are: 1. How frequent IIUM students participate in extracurricular activities? 2. What is the ranking of soft skills acquired through extracurricular activities?

Methodology Respondents In this study, a sample of 30 students of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Gombak was selected randomly to answer the survey. Majority of them were from Kulliyyah of ICT (KICT) with 15 respondents and there were also representative from Kulliyyah of Architecture (KAED) with 1 respondent, Institute of Education (INSTEAD) with 1 respondent, Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences (KIRKHS) with 7 respondents, as well as Kulliyyah of Economics (KENMS) with 6 respondents. Materials / Research Instruments For the purpose of this research, a quantitative methodological was used. The instruments used for this research was a set of survey which is designed based on the research questions constructed from the study. The survey consisted of open ended question; it was divided into two parts which are participation of extracurricular part, and the soft skills part.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 7

There was a question asking on demographic information namely which kulliyyah the respondent belongs to. In order to satisfy the first research question (How frequent IIUM students participate in extracurricular activities?), the questions was mainly focusing on the participation of IIUM students in extracurricular activities. Questions 2 and 3 were a yes/no questions which consisted of question of interest and participation on the extracurricular activities. Next, question 5 was a choice question concerned on the frequency of the respondents in joining extracurricular activities. Question 4 particularly asked on the type of extracurricular activities the respondents have joined and it was a choice question. The choices in this question were: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. SRC Carnival Convocation Fiesta (CONVEST) Kulliyyah Fiesta/Carnival Mahallah Fiesta/Carnival Stabaz Others

Subsequently, question 6 – 10 is aimed to acknowledge the second research question (What is the ranking of soft skills acquired through extracurricular activities?). Generally, respondents were asked about soft skills. Question 6 – 8 comprised of yes/no question asked on the awareness on the importance of soft skills. Besides that, question 9 is a likert-scale question which inquired on the effects of extracurricular activities in building soft skills. Lastly, question 10 was a ranking question that requires respondents rank the soft skills acquired from the extracurricular activities. There were 7 types of soft skills had to be ranked:

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. Communication skills Critical thinking and problem solving skills Lifelong learning and information management skills Teamwork skills Entrepreneurial skills Moral and professional ethics skills Leadership skills 8

Research procedure Before the survey was distributed, the first draft is examined by our supervisor of English for Academic Writing subject. Then, the modifications and redesigning were made accordingly. After that, the actual study was conducted whereby the surveys were distributed to 30 eligible respondents across different Kulliyyahs. In this study, Google form is used to distribute the surveys to all respondents through Facebook message as it was convenient. The questionnaires only took two to three minutes for each respondent to answer and the results received from the respondents are transferred into pie charts. Results Data finding was based on the responses given by the 30 respondents among IIUM students. The results were transformed to percentage form in the form of pie chart for the sake of ease of analysis and more readable.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 9

Figure 1 : Participation of IIUM Undergraduate students in extracurricular

13%

Yes No

87%

Figure 2: Interest of IIUM Undergraduate in extracurricular activities organized by student society
7%

Yes No

93%

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 10

Figure 3: Types of extracurricular activities

11% 7%

16%

SRC Carnival CONVEST 18% Kulliyyah Fiesta Mahallah Fiesta STABAZ

27% 20%

Other

Figure 4: Monthly participation of respondents
10% 0% 3%

1 time 2 times 23% 63% 3 times 4 times 5 and more

Figure 1 depicts the rate of participation of IIUM Undergraduate students in extracurricular activities. There were only two choices of answers which were yes and no. Based on the figure above, it can be said that 26 respondents participated in extracurricular activities while others did not participated. Next, figure 2 shows the opinion of the respondents in joining extracurricular activities organized by clubs or student society. Majority of them claimed that they are

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 11

interested to participate in such program with 93 per cent which is equals to 28 respondents. As shown in pie chart above, Mahallah Fiesta depicts the most favourable activities with 27 per cent and then followed by Kulliyyah Fiesta with 20 per cent. Next, the number of respondents who had joined Convocation Fiesta (CONVEST) and SRC Carnival are 18 per cent and 16 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, only 7 per cent of IIUM students participated in STABAZ and another 11 per cent of the respondents joined other programs. Besides that, the respondents were asked how frequent they joined the extracurricular activities in a month. 63 per cent and 23 per cent of the respondents participate in extracurricular once and twice per month respectively. Another 10 per cent joined 3 times and nobody claimed 4 times. Unexpectedly, there was 3 per cent who joined at least 5 times per month.

Figure 5: The awareness of soft skills among respondents
0%

Yes No

100%

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 12

Figure 6: The awareness of soft skills gained from extracurricular activities
0%

Yes

No

100%

Figure 7: Importance of soft skills in future
0

Yes No

100%

Figure 5 shows the answer for the question of the respondents’ awareness of soft skills. All of them answered they know and aware what soft skills are. Similarly, majority of the respondents reported that they have gained soft skills in extracurricular activities they joined. Thereafter, respondents were asked on the importance of soft skills for their future. Based on that question, all of them agreed that soft skills play a vital role in future.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 13

Figure 8: Level of agreement on extracurricular activities do help build soft skills
16 14 15 11

12
Number of 8 Respondents 6 4 2 10

Strongly disagree Disagree Neutral

1

1

2

Agree Strongly agree

0
Extracurricular affects on building soft skills

Figure 9: Type of soft skills and its level of acquirement from extracurricular activities
Leadership Moral and Proffesional Ethics Type of Soft Skills Entrepreneurial Teamwork Lifelong Learning and Information Management Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Communication 0 01 01 1 2 4 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 5 10 6 7 8 4 5 7 10 13 13 15 12 12 15 13 14 15 20 10 15 17 5

4
3 2 1

Number of Respondents

Next, respondents were asked on their agreement regarding relationship between extracurricular activities and soft skills development. As refer to Figure 9, 11 respondents chose “Strongly agree” which is less than those who chose “Agree”. However, report still showed that majority of respondents believes that extracurricular activities have its role in building soft skills. Last but not least, based on type of soft skills given, respondents were

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 14

asked to label its level of acquirement received from extracurricular activities. As refer to the histogram above, least acquired is depicted as 1 and most acquired is depicted as 5. Moral and professional ethics skill has the highest number of respondents who level it as Level 4 of acquired soft skills from extracurricular activities. In spite of this, respondents chose that the most acquired skill and labelled it as Level 5 is teamwork. Apart from that, soft skills that placed between Level 4 and 5 are leadership, lifelong learning and information management, critical thinking and problem solving and communication. As for entrepreneurial skill, it is chosen as Level 3 of acquired skill from extracurricular activities. This soft skill received the highest number of respondents in term of least acquired soft skills from extracurricular activities which is 6 respondents with 4 levelled it as Level 2. Discussion In this section, the data finding will be discussed in detail. The purpose of this study is to investigate effectiveness of extracurricular activities in building soft skills. There are 7 types of soft skills specified by the Ministry of Education Malaysia namely communication skills, critical thinking and problem solving skills, lifelong learning and information management skills, teamwork skills, entrepreneurial skills, moral and professional ethics skills, and leadership skills (Roselina Shakir, 2009). Based on the findings from the questionnaire, it answers the research question. The first research question for this study is to determine how frequent IIUM students participate in extracurricular activities. As shown in the results, most of IIUM students participate in extracurricular activities. Only small number of them does not participate in such activities. A possible explanation for this result is the small number of respondents who

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 15

do not participate is because of they are final year students which requires them to focus and put more commitment in their study. Moreover, figure 4 clearly depicts most of the respondents joined extracurricular activities once a month. The possible reason for this might be the students are more concern in their academic achievement rather than extracurricular activities. Other than that, they were already occupied with many assignments and task which did not allow them to participate more in other activities. A study conducted by Jin Wang and Jonathan Shiveley (2008) depicted that extracurricular activities does not impact academic performance negatively. Thus, it is expected that student is willing to join the extracurricular activities as it is not an excuse for poor academic achievement. The second question in this study pursued to determine the ranking of soft skills acquired through extracurricular activities. As seen from the result, all respondents know what soft skills are and agreed that extracurricular activities help building soft skills. Participants believe that soft skills are vital for the future and it is correspond with previous study made by Roselina Shakir (2009) where she mentioned, “Companies are continually seeking employees with highly qualified technical, and also possess leadership and communication skills.” Therefore, these results were very encouraging and further explanation is needed to know type of soft skills developed by partaking in extracurricular activities. Another important finding was that teamwork skill leveled as Level 5 which is the most acquired soft skills with 15 participants voted this. Other skill which acquired the second highest voting is leadership skill. This finding in in agreement with Aimao Zhang’s (2012) findings which showed that group project can provide students with soft skill training.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 16

One unanticipated finding was that, entrepreneurial skill was ranked as Level 3 and below. Possible explanation to this finding would be most of activities required students to plan instead of directly involve with business. Most of booths were open by small business organizations and students were acted as committee will set up the place and deal with seller. This is an important issue for future research whereby all type of soft skills should be received at least Level 3 and above in acquirement ranking.

The results of this study clearly showed that there were significant findings on the effectiveness of extracurricular activities and acquirement of soft skills. However, the findings in this report are subject to at least two limitations. First, due to time constraint, the current study only examined IIUM undergraduates without courses specification such as comparing between students from different kulliyyah and type of soft skills that they search for. Lastly, it is unfortunate that the study does not involved postgraduates where respondents can be much wider and results can be more significant.

This finding has important implication for the university and the student societies in planning student extracurricular activities. Since most students claimed that the most acquired skills are teamwork skill and leadership skill, other skills should be considered as well like entrepreneurial skill, and lifelong learning and information management skill. It is essential to provide students with sufficient soft skills before graduation. Therefore, the university should encourage entrepreneurship programs or activities. Entrepreneurship program should not be bordered by selling things only; it should involve the skill of convincing people and grabbing people’s attention with the product or services. In addition to that, the university should also encourage more participation in extracurricular activities to enhance their lifelong learning skills. This is because of lifelong learners are motivated to learn and develop their skills from

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 17

time to time. Sewing skill, cooking skill, and photography skill are the example of skill that can be instilled from student’s hobby; such activities should be offered on a large scale as many students will be interested to join.

This study only begins to reveal the effectiveness of extracurricular activities in building soft skills as well as level of soft skills acquired. It is reasonable to claim that students know variety of soft skills can be acquired however, which soft skill is the most needed based on their field of studies? A future study should investigate the relationship between courses and soft skills needed to make it interesting.

In brief, extracurricular activities do help students on building their soft skills. It is an effective medium for them to learn multiple types of soft skills. Hence, the university should encourage student participation on extracurricular activities other than widen the range of activities for students.

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS References 18

Abdul Malek Abdul Karim et.al (2012). A nationwide comparative study between private and public university students’ soft skills. Retrieved October 4,2014, from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12564-012-9205-1#page-1.

Aimao Zhang (2012). Peer Assessment of Soft Skills and Hard Skills. Retrieved October 4, 2014, from www.jite.org/documents/Vol11/JITEv11p155-168Zhang1119.pdf

Duncan, A. (2010). Soft skills for scientist: not a soft option. Retrieved October 4, 2014, from Leed Metropolitan University Repository http://repositoryintralibrary.leedsmet.ac.uk/open_virtual_file_path/i391n229855t/Soft%20skills%20for%20scientis ts.pdf

Jing Wang, Jonathan Shiveley . (2008). The Impact of Extracurricular Activity on Student Academic Performance. Retrieved October 4, 2014, from http://www.cair.org/conferences/cair2009/pres/Wang%2520Student%2520Activity%2520Report %25202009.pdf

Jing Wang, Jonathan Shiveley . (2008). The Impact of Extracurricular Activity on Student Academic Performance. Retrieved October 4, 2014, from http://www.cair.org/conferences/cair2009/pres/Wang%2520Student%2520Activity%2520Report %25202009.pdf

Li-Tze Lee, Tien-Tse Lee.(2011). Investigating Soft Skills for Success in the Workforce: Perception of Elementary School Teachers. Retrieved October 4, 2014, from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0 CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Firssh.com%2Fyahoo_site_admin%2Fassets%2Fdocs%2F12_I

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 19

RSSHVol_1_No_2.253202424.pdf&ei=tD6HVKLnAcO8uAS1zYKIDQ&usg=AFQjCNGb4aF8HAS Hu1Sgz0xcteoBTZcFdA&sig2=VDHdttjp6EB_BrWFOcFEAw&bvm=bv.81449611,d.c2E

Appendix A

1. Which kulliyyah are you from: Information, Communication and Technology Engineering Economics Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Law Architecture Human Science Islamic Revealed and Knowledge 2. Do you participate in any extracurricular activities instead of provided by CLASS? Yes No 3. Are you interested in joining other extracurricular activities organized by clubs or student society? Yes No 4. What type of extracurricular have you joined? (You may choose more than one) SRC Carnival Convocation Fiesta Kulliyyah Fiesta Mahallah Fiesta Stabaz 5. How frequent you joined extracurricular activities per month? 1 2 3 4 5 and more 6. Do you know what soft skills are? Yes No 7. Have you gained any soft skills based on your participation in extracurricular activities? Yes No

A STUDY ON HOW IIUM STUDENTS PERCEIVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ON BUILDING SOFT SKILLS 8. Do you think those soft skills are importance to you in future? Yes No 9. Types of soft skills acquired from extracurricular activities that you have joined. (Please rank 1 to 7. *1-most acquired, 8-least acquired) Communication skills Critical thinking and problem solving skills Lifelong learning and information management skills Teamwork skills Entrepreneurial skills Moral and professional ethics skills Leadership skill 20

Strongly agree -5 agree -4 Neutral -3 disagree -2 strongly disagree -1 1 10. I am able to convey information to people clearly and simply 11. I can encourage and inspire my team to perform better 12. If I work on business area, I can create an appealing packaging that can reach a broad range of customers. 13. I can be able to draw up a business plan for a new venture 14. I am capable of making judgments and apply my skills and reach decisions in situations that others cannot. 15. I am confident in my abilities and I am confident in the abilities of my team members. 16. I like the idea of ongoing pursuit of knowledge for personal and professional reasons. 2 3 4 5