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Abstract

The embedment of soft skills into education programs in higher education is closely related to the curriculum philosophy brought by the respective institutions. The soft skills are embedded through understanding belief systems and practices among the teacher trainers. Furthermore it provides an insight into the curriculum philosophy on how to implement soft skills embedment. Therefore, this study aimed to understand teacher trainers’ understanding and teaching practice in embedding soft skills while teaching core courses for the Bachelor of Teaching Program (PISMP) at the Malaysia Institute of Teacher Education (IPG). This understanding is necessary in order to resolve the misunderstanding that embedding soft skills are burdensome for the teacher trainers and that it is only documented without being practiced. The case study methodology was used through a qualitative approach. Five teacher trainers with different backgrounds and teaching experience participated as respondents. The findings resulted in improved understanding on teacher trainers’ understanding about soft skills embedment and how the actual process of embedding soft skills occurred. The results of this study allow those involved in the development of student-teachers' soft skills to generate ideas to develop models for soft skills embedment that are in line with the interpretation of PISMP soft skills.

Keywords

Teaching practice active teaching embedding soft skills transmission teaching facilitative teaching

Introduction

The National Education Philosophy (FPK) of Malaysia has clarified that balance development of human capital is in terms of physical, emotional, spiritual and intellectual aspects. In accordance with the FPK, the embedment of soft skills has been introduced at higher education institutions in Malaysia since 2006. However, many stakeholders are still worried about the lack of soft skills among graduates in their programs. Therefore, a lot of research on the profile of graduate soft skills has been conducted. It is time for the attention to be shifted to see what or how the curriculum philosophy has been understood and practiced within the institution itself. The need for curriculum philosophy in the education system was not meant to deny the existence of the existing national education philosophy, but to facilitate the process of developing human capital in a more effective way – to the extent of understanding the planning and implementation of the curriculum. As the curriculum is related to teaching and learning, any discussion of the curriculum will be taken into account upon how the teaching and learning process takes place.

Some researchers have seen changes in teaching and learning in the educational model as a paradigm shift (Barr and Tagg, 1995; Campbell and Smith, 1997; Fink, 2003). This situation was described as a paradigm shift from a teaching to learning paradigm (Barr and Tagg, 1995). The new paradigm of the learning environment is challenging and in line with the concept of cooperative and collaborative learning, while the teaching paradigm creates a competitive and individualistic class (Barr and Tagg, 1995; Fink, 2003). The paradigm of learning requires students to work together with the management of education in developing the knowledge by being actively involved in developing, exploring and modifying this knowledge for their own usage (Campbell and Smith, 1997). Cheng and Mok (2008) reinforced this view by stating that the learning paradigm has to have factors such as positive learning aptitude, using a range of learning methods, effective learning strategies, and various thoughts about learning and satisfaction in the learning environment. The learning environment is not traditional and therefore requires an active learning method to motivate students to get involved in the learning process. The intended environment is open, flexible, locally-and globally-linked, and provides unlimited learning opportunities for students (Mok and Cheng, 2001).

In the process of implementing the goal to change the education system, teachers are involved as the main agent of change, by playing their roles either at schools or educational institutions. Educational change can be viewed as a process of changes in knowledge, beliefs, aptitude, understanding, self-awareness and the practice of teaching (Bailey, 1992; Darling-Hammond, 1990; Jackson, 1992; O’Banion, 1997; Richardson, 1990). Reviews on the relevant literature for educational change of educational theory relate the displacement of education as a change in teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, aptitude and perception (Borg, 2009; Doyler and Ponder, 1977; Fullan, 2001; Guskey, 1986, 1988; Harris, 1980; Richardson, 1990; Tobin, 1987). Teachers have widely accepted that the statement about changes in teachers' practices in the classroom is an expression of beliefs, and that their educational philosophy and beliefs play major roles in conceptualizing the tasks and activities of teaching (Clark and Peterson, 1986; Dobson and Dobson, 1983; Fenstermacher, 1979; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992).

In terms of embedding soft skills at the IPG, before implementing a student-centered pedagogy for soft skills embedment, it is important to review the existing main beliefs among teacher trainers. Studies on teacher trainers’ teaching experience are expected to contribute toward understanding whether or not teacher trainers will change their educational beliefs. Teacher trainers’ understanding is very important in the implementation efforts by the Ministry of Education (KPM) to adopt a student-centered approach in embedding soft skills in the Bachelor of Teaching (PISMP). Although educational change can occur at various levels such as at the individual lecturer, educational institutions, community and country levels (Fullan, 2001; Richardson, 1990), the lecturer is still regarded as a great agent of change and is a major contributor to changing the role of educational institutions (Beck et al., 2000).

Thus, the study on understanding teacher trainers’ belief structure is essential to improve teaching style and also enhance professional teaching preparation by the teacher trainers (Fenstermacher, 1979; Nespor, 1987). This is further supported by Pratt (1998), who stated that beliefs and values are not insignificant, but fundamental; beliefs and values, in which the particular teaching methods are situated, are like large icebergs that sink.

Literature review

The higher education institute (HEI) soft skills development programs have generally been introduced by one of two models or a combination of both (Kementerian PT, 2010; Roselina, 2009): namely the bolt on model as identified by Dunne (1995) and the embedded model (embedded), which provides an opportunity for soft skills elements to integrate within the course of the studied subjects (Bath et al., 2004, Chaple and Tolley, 2000).

Through the bolt on model for soft skills subjects, the teaching and learning of soft skills run in parallel with existing core courses. The advantage of this model is its ability to introduce the soft skills without changing the core courses curriculum. The weakness of this model occurs when the soft skills are developed out of context because of lack of opportunity to transfer the skills (Bennett et al., 2000) across the curriculum.

The embedded model is advantageous as the skills can be developed within the context and based on knowledge, but it is disadvantageous in terms of needing to adapt the soft skills curriculum to the current core courses curriculum. Marina and Aminuddin (2012) studied teacher trainers’ readiness to embed soft skills into PISMP core courses and found that majority of teacher trainers were interested and willing to apply soft skills into the core courses. But, they expressed concerns in terms of losing focus on teaching and learning, such that whether the focus should be on the content of the core courses or the content of the soft skills, which varied in elements. Therefore, it is critical to understand teacher trainers’ understanding of the embedded process so that soft skills embedment can be implemented and the objective to develop soft skills can be achieved.

Studies about soft skills within Malaysia and abroad are similar in terms of the success reported in the implementation of soft skills development among students (if there is no problem in the implementation of soft skills), but there is a lack of reports or studies on the methods of teaching and learning soft skills in the current formal curriculum. Results from a compilation of research related to soft skills in higher educational institutions by Ahmad and Mohammad Zaid (2010) indicated that the scope of soft skills studies conducted in Malaysia was more focused on the survey of a soft skills profile among graduates, students and teachers compared to the teaching and learning of soft skills. The lack of reports or studies on soft skills teaching and learning methods in the teacher training curriculum creates a gap in developing soft skills among student-teachers. Moreover, the finding from Wan Azlinda and Mohamed Hafis (2009) demonstrated, teachers also found it is difficult to embed soft skills in students due to lack of understanding about soft skills.

Bowden et al. (2000) stated that soft skills should be explicitly related to the content of learning or discipline of study, rather than implicitly. The main practices that need to be addressed are by embedding soft skills competencies into the curriculum disciplines. That study's findings consistently showed that soft skills competencies in higher education were more effectively developed in the context of disciplinary knowledge and embedded into the curriculum disciplines (embedded model), rather than through stand-alone subjects and were isolated from the context of the discipline of study (Barrie, 2004; Bath et al., 2004; Bowden et al., 2000; Drummond et al., 1998; Star and Hammer, 2007; Sin and Reid, 2005; Thompson et al., 2008). The separation of soft skills from the disciplinary learning environment may lead to superficial technical approaches in teaching and learning of soft skills (Star and Hammer, 2007).

Therefore, our study was aimed to explored how teaching approaches among teacher trainers were aligned with the soft skills development for student-teachers. It used a qualitative approach to explore the experience of teacher trainers in teacher education programs at the institute. Furthermore, our study tried to fill the gap between the teacher trainer's understanding in embedding soft skills to student-teacher with their actual teaching practice.

Purpose

The aims of the study were to:

Understand how teacher trainers understand the embedment of soft skills into the teaching of core courses.

Understand the relationship between teacher trainers’ perceptions toward the embedment of soft skills and the actual teaching practice.

Methodology

The constructivist paradigm was adopted to guide this study. Qualitative methodology was used to investigate the teaching experience among teacher trainers as the constructivist paradigm is the base for qualitative research methods (Guba and Lincoln, 1994).

This study used a qualitative inquiry because it adopted a naturalistic approach that sought to understand phenomena in the context of a specific environment, like a real-world environment (where) the researchers did not attempt to manipulate the phenomenon under study (Patton, 2002).

An emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual, and the focus on understanding the participants from their own perspective led to the use of case studies. According to Merriam (1998), a case study is an intensive, holistic description and analysis of a single unit or limited system. Yin (2003) defined a case study as an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon in a real life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clear. This study used a case study strategy for the embedment of soft skills into the teaching of core courses at a Malaysian IPG, whereby the IPG was the case (limited system) to explore the experience of teaching among teacher trainers.

Three clear criteria in the selection of the participants were followed. First, all participants were teacher trainers at the IPG. Second, teacher trainers were involved in the teaching of core courses to student-teachers. Third, the teacher trainers’ teaching experiences were divided into two periods ranging from 1–10 years and more than 10 years.

Five teacher trainers were involved in this study. The sample size was believed to be sufficient as the interview answers provided the saturation data which are diverse, dense and deep. This allowed the researcher to explore the teaching views and experiences of the teacher trainers’ core course.

Semi-structured interviews were used as the primary source of evidence, and were further supported and triangulated with other sources, such as document analysis, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews.

In this study, the researcher used M & H’s Interactional Model of Qualitative Data Analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to analyze the internal data and each data source (individual interviews, documents, observation and stimulated recall interviews). This model shows that data analysis involves three interrelated activities starting with data collection. These activities in turn involved reducing data manually, displaying data using ATLAS.ti (http://atlasti.com/) software and producing a conclusion and validation by interpreting the data.

Results and discussion

Using Seidel’s (1998) qualitative data analysis model and the ATLAS.ti software to analyze data from the teacher trainers, which involved providing the data (individual interviews, observation and stimulated recall interviews), three themes were developed, namely the belief about soft skills embedment, transmission teaching approach, and the use of the facilitative teaching approach.

Beliefs about soft skills embedment

'Soft skills was readily embedded into the teaching of core courses'

The first theme that emerged from the data was the belief on embedding soft skills from the perspective of teaching core courses. According to the perspective of teaching core courses in PISMP, all subjects in the core courses should be able to introduce basic knowledge, generic skills, and soft skills that must be mastered by a teacher. In PISMP, the embedding soft skills concept should dominate all aspects of subject content and teaching methods of core courses. Some excerpts from an interview with one of the participants (Safwan) reflected his understanding about embedding soft skills into his teaching:

‘Co-curricular teaching emphasizes … skills, coaching, staffing and management. He (the student teachers) must have the skills, can train, can become an officer and can manage the tournament. Students have to make on their own from writing the paperwork, meeting, committee members discussion, looking for venue until completion. While he doing it on his own he will learn indirectly … teacher trainers becomes a place for reference and mentors … '(Safwan)

This belief was commonly shared with other participants. Adam stated that as a lecturer, he was responsible to ensure all student-teachers acquire the knowledge and skills required by a prospective teacher. He linked his statement to the national education philosophy:

‘All students have the opportunity to get the best education. As teacher trainers we should provide students with good ideas, thoughts, knowledge and skills. We should always encourage our students to learn until the end. Just as the national education philosophy, are set to produce a balanced and harmonious person, in terms of intellectual, spiritual, emotional and physical.'(Adam)

Transmission teaching approach (delivering)

'I am a delivery'

The extracted data suggest a belief existed amongst the majority of the interviewed teacher trainers about teaching as a transmission of knowledge. According to the transmission perspective, effective teaching begins with a commitment to the content or subject matter. From this perspective, students are considered as the containers to be filled with knowledge. This perspective can be seen through some passages of dialogue with the participants, ‘I have to convey knowledge and give information, especially to students who are comfortable learning in a passive way' (Anita). This was supported by Safwan, ‘ … when it came to the implementation stage from teacher trainers, we directly focus on what we want to present … ' (Safwan) and Sofia, ‘ … as a teacher, I feel responsible to impart knowledge and skills to students with the emphasis on the subject syllabus to help students prepare for exams and tests' (Sofia).

When teacher trainers believe that they are responsible for imparting knowledge, their teaching practice would also be influenced by this perspective. Teacher trainers would be ready with having clear lesson objectives, providing a well-planned lecture, using class time efficiently, answering students' questions and formulating the desired standards of student achievement. The excerpt from the interview with Lizarnor reflected this belief, whereby she said that although she used active teaching strategies, she also sometimes used the transmission approach (such as giving lectures and notes). She also agreed that transmission is useful as an approach for a more effective learning.

Facilitative teaching approach

The third theme that emerged from the data was associated with the facilitative approach toward teaching as opposed to the transmission teaching approach (the second theme). Facilitative teaching involves the teacher trainers facilitating the student-teachers' learning by encouraging them to be active in constructing their own meaning. A lecturer is a facilitator for student-teachers in developing their skills, not only in terms of learning outcomes, but also how the knowledge is used.

Facilitative teaching strategies

'Teacher trainers are facilitators'

Feedback from teacher trainers demonstrated their understanding that the role of a good lecturer is a facilitator, so that student-teachers continue to build their own learning experience. Interview data showed that the teacher trainers supported the features of a facilitative lecturer:

‘I believe that all teacher trainers should guide and advise their student teachers, as well as being a facilitator in their learning. While we were busy with the tasks of teaching and other management tasks, we still need to spend time with students such as providing guidance on assignments and on the content of teaching.' (Adam)

The observations on one of the participants (Sofia) showed that the lecturer worked to facilitate the learning of student-teachers in the classroom by helping and guiding them in a group discussion. Sofia also provided guidance on the topics covered and encouraged student- teachers to use their own creativity to make the discussion more meaningful. The lecturer also frequently intervened in discussions among student-teachers by asking questions or providing feedback. When asked during a stimulated recall interview about her teaching style, she said:

‘Through student teacher group discussion, I can help student teachers learning rather than just presenting the information during my lecture … I gave them problems to be solved, and I give them space to find a solution by means of exchanging ideas and opinions in the group … but I think I still need to raise the level of their thinking by asking questions and giving comments. My teaching seems to be able to lead students to the development of the concepts being discussed … '(Sofia)

For some participants, their role as a facilitator meant they have to know how to study and facilitate the student- teachers' learning ability. Some of them stated that teacher trainers needed to know the needs of student-teachers and be aware about their learning problems.

‘I do not agree with some of the teacher trainers who see themselves as an instructor … they should be a facilitator or a motivator to their student teachers … because in IPG we train teachers. Our role is not only imparting knowledge but to provide them with their learning needs … '(Anita)

Lecturer is a skills builder

Apart from the role of the lecturer as a facilitator for student-teachers learning, some participants were comfortable with the term ‘skill builder’ to describe the role of the teacher trainers. In their opinion, the lecturer was not only responsible for delivering lessons, but also in developing behavior and the desired skills for student-teachers. This can be seen from the following passage:

‘While teacher trainers work on imparting knowledge to students, they also need to develop skills and behaviors needed in a student stands … meaning that the teacher trainers also act as a skill builders, responsible in building skills, study skills and any essential skills in their life.' (Adam)

Lizarnor and Sofia linked skill development with the objective of the national education philosophy, which aims to promote the development of the students in all aspects of life:

‘As a lecturer, I try my best to foster learning skills in student teachers. Usually what I do is I make assignments and projects as a medium for student teachers to foster the learning skills. As for me, I give student teachers a group project that they have to do it themselves, but I do not leave them alone, I still play a role in supervising each week. I may know their movement deeply because they have to report all of their project plan. I still guide them, advise them on what to do … ' (Sofia)

‘At the same time we have to build their skills and behavior (student teachers) … our role is not limited to cognitive development but also skills, emotional and behavioral as defined by the national education philosophy'. (Lizarnor)

Some participants needed to become builders as they needed to instill the skills in student-teachers through the curriculum. They said that they were expected to play the role of facilitator or skills builder through soft skills embedment. This reflected their support for soft skills embedment (introduced by the Ministry of Education) that must be implemented for all undergraduates at higher learning institutions:

‘Now there is soft skills embedment into PISMP. We embed soft skills in all core course subjects. Students were embedded with a variety of generic skills (soft skills) such as how to handle a group during a group discussion in the classroom, using learning technology … implementation of soft skills can actually help the overall development of students. We need to give special attention to and build skills by teaching … to be facilitators and skills builder … Otherwise we will just be a purveyor of knowledge, just focus on the purely intellectual aspects and ignoring other aspects such as emotional and physical development. They (student teachers) will be a teacher in the future; we want them to be a good teacher and balanced in all aspects of human capital development.' (Adam)

The above expressions by Adam suggested that his teaching philosophy was that teacher trainers should be responsible for developing student-teachers' soft skills as much as they develop student-teachers' knowledge.

The themes revealed two perspectives on soft skills embedment among teacher trainers, which were through traditional didactic teaching (transmission teaching approach) and active teaching (facilitative teaching approach). The emergence of a student-centered perspective in this study suggested that teacher trainers were in the process of transforming from the transmission to facilitative teaching approach.

The analysis revealed the existence of an integration process between didactic and active teaching approaches among the teacher trainers. Our research found that teacher trainers believed that teaching should not be a mere lecture and that teacher trainers should use student-centered teaching as well. They also believed that these two approaches were complementary of, rather than conflicting with, each other. This suggests that the teacher trainers’ beliefs and teaching practices are being transformed; a finding which is in line with Bailey’s (1992) arguments stating that the change in teaching practice is a result of changes in teachers' beliefs. According to Bandura (1986), a decision in an individual's life is greatly influenced by their belief. Similarly, Pajares (1992) asserted that belief is ‘the best indicator of the decisions made by individuals throughout their lives' and the belief among teacher trainers influenced them and affected their behaviors in the classroom. This is reflected in the participants’ understanding and practice.

There is evidence that the teacher trainers understood teaching as a means to transmit and facilitate knowledge. This understanding was reflected in their teaching practice. Our classroom observations showed that teacher trainers used both the transmission and facilitative teaching approaches. They started the class with a lecture and followed it with active teaching strategies that required student-teachers to be involved in specific activities.

Conclusion

Based on the findings of this study, the implications are discussed in terms of the construction method for a more effective embedding of the soft skills method. This study suggested that teacher trainers’ understanding about teaching was a reflection of their beliefs and philosophy towards embedding soft skills in teaching and learning. In time, they see teaching and learning as teacher-centered and/or student-centered. The results also showed consistency in the strategy for soft skills embedment. Thus, to understand a teaching style, it is important to understand the teacher trainers’ beliefs about education.

The findings suggested that teacher trainers associated their role with the process of embedding soft skills. The teacher trainers acknowledged that they needed to play the role of knowledge experts and to be role models for their student-teachers. At the same time, they also accepted their roles as mentors and facilitators. Their philosophy about teaching and learning, which was found to be very strong, should be enough to suggest to the Ministry of Education and IPG to accept the important relationship between a teaching method and an effective strategy for soft skills embedment. The mere focus on student-teachers' training and increased computers usage in the classroom are not the strategies to embed soft skills. This study suggested for IPG to develop a teacher training program which embeds soft skills elements into teaching and learning, emphasizing the concepts and holistic integration through their teaching. Further, IPGs may seek to consider teaching and learning approaches that can be associated with strategies to embed soft skills and to reconsider student-centered learning as a parallel strategy with the embedding soft skills strategy. A greater emphasis on beliefs about embedding soft skills strategy among teacher trainers is desirable because most teacher trainers choose to adopt teaching and learning in line with their belief system.

Since teacher trainers’ beliefs about teaching and learning may form the fundamentals of their behavior and the behavior changes with changes in belief, then teacher training courses that are able to encourage participants to reflect on their beliefs and make these beliefs explicit will most likely boost professional development (Pajares, 1992). IPG (via In-Service Training Unit) has been conducting courses and training on the development of student-teachers' soft skills for the teacher trainers throughout the year, but the courses have not been able to integrate teaching courses with teaching beliefs. Most courses focus lessons on pedagogical knowledge (such as problem-based learning workshops, lessons for adult learning) and the importance of information and communication technology (ICT) in learning (such as e-learning or blended learning). Thus, this study suggests that IPG and teacher training programs should implement changes in the identification of professional knowledge, skills and values. This is important to keep it in line with the teacher trainers’ belief, so that teacher trainers can teach effectively in a student-centered teaching and learning context.

Another implication for IPG is to construct student-centered definitions that may reflect the values of developing soft skills. This study showed that teacher trainers accepted the student-centered teaching approach as a very useful and effective teaching approach, which in turn reflected their willingness to change toward student-centered teaching. However, this transformation may vary from one lecturer to another. Therefore, to maximize the potential advantages of the student-centered approach in teacher training programs, the challenges faced within the learning culture such as teacher trainers’ attitudes towards student-centered teaching, time constraints and large class size should be solved first. Based on these factors, IPG should introduce a more systematic teacher training program that can integrate a student-centered model with a model that embeds soft skills. This can be accomplished using an interpretation of the student-centered learning that applies the embedding of the soft skills philosophy and takes into account the conditions of all student-teachers and teacher trainers. It is important to implement a teacher training program based on soft skills embedment in order to encourage effective skills construction among student-teachers. The findings of this study have produced a critical view of the management of teacher training programs at the institute, and also provided an opportunity for the management of the institute to design and develop an appropriate teaching and learning model with a teacher training program that is based on soft skills embedment, while still using the student-centered approach.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Aminuddin Hassan, PhD, is a Associate Professor at the Foundation Studies Department, Universiti Putra Malaysia. His interest are research, teaching and consultancy works, in the area of philosophy of education, higher education, thinking skills and logic.

Marina Maharoff, PhD, is a senior lecturer at the Department of Science, Labuan Matriculation College, Ministry of Education. She is a former postgraduate of Universiti Putra Malaysia that currently involved in a research projects focusing on the soft skills development among students in higher education institutes. Another research area she interest too is teaching and learning method in teaching institutes.

Norhasni Zainal Abidin, PhD, is a Associate Professor at the Department of Professional Development and Continuing Education, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She is currently involved in a research regarding human capital development in higher education institution. Another research area is educational supervision both in secondary school and higher education institutes.

Ihsan Ro'is, PhD, is a lecturer at Faculty of Economic Studies, Universitas Mataram Indonesia. He is experienced in teaching area of Economic Studies for almost 20 years.

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Yin

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Teacher trainers’ and trainee teachers’ understanding towards the curriculum philosophy regarding soft skills embedment in the Malaysian Institute of Teacher Education