Leading students towards a new soft-skills perspective: development for employment

Autor

  • ALMA SHEHU LOKAJ Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo
  • Vehbi Miftari Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo
  • Vjosa Hajdari Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.1.283.296

Słowa kluczowe:

Soft skills, Kendall Tau-b Test, Mann Whitney test, employability, graduates.

Abstrakt

Aim. Based on similar studies, this research work aims to investigate the perception of students and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of learning about the importance of soft skills for their education and employment since these skills are increasingly sought-after by potential employers.

Methods. The Kendall Tau b test and Mann Whitney U test have been applied to show the relationship between soft skills and job preparedness for students. This study investigates a selection of 100 students from a private HEI (UBT College) and 100 students from a public HEI (University “Haxhi Zeka”), both in Kosovo. A total of 200 valid responses were collected from July to September 2020. Goldsmith inventory for 15 soft skills has been distributed as a questionnaire has been distributed to the students of these universities.

Results and conclusion. The research results indicate that in soft skills development of the UBT College students is significantly higher than the soft skills developed of the University “Haxhi Zeka” students. The findings also show that most of the students believe that their actual soft skills were at a less than the desired level.

Practical application. This research implicates the Higher Education Institutions to consider the soft skills as an important tool for enhancing graduates’ employability. The results indicate the need to  reconsider the curriculum by embedding soft skills on it. The students’ perception on soft skills is a contribution not only for the universities considered in this research but also for all graduates in HEIs in Kosovo, since the curriculum does not change much among universities. According to Eurostat the unemployment youth rate in Kosovo is about 55.4% and for this reason the results will help the HEIs to rethink about their students’ future employment opportunities.

Originality. This is the only study done in Kosovo about graduates’ soft skills and employment and it provides information about a concerning problem in the country. This paper suggests initiatives to upgrade students’ soft skills and to improve their perspective on their future employment.

##plugins.generic.usageStats.downloads##

##plugins.generic.usageStats.noStats##

Biogramy autorów

ALMA SHEHU LOKAJ - Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo

Dr.Sc. Teaching Assistant at the Faculty of Business, Department of Business Management. Holding a PhD on Management and specialization on Human Resources Management. 

Vehbi Miftari - Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo

Prof. Asoc.Dr. Professor at University "Haxhi Zeka" Peja/Kosovo/Faculty of Business/Department of Business Management. Specialized in literature and modern theories of communication. 

Vjosa Hajdari - Faculty of Business/University “Haxhi Zeka” Str. UCK Peja/Kosovo

Teaching assistant at University “Haxhi Zeka” in Peja/Kosovo – Faculty of Business. She holds a PhD in Finance and is the winner of Fulbright program. She is a young researcher with many published scientific articles in the region and further.

Bibliografia

Ahmad, Mohd, Z. M., & Noorul, A. M. N. (2019). The Role of Soft Skills on Business Graduates Employabiity. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business, 7(2), 83–94.

Ahmad, S. S. B. (2013). Soft Skills Level of Malaysian Students at a Tertiary Institution: A Comparative Case Study Based On Gender, Area of Residence and Type of Schools. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 3(9), 1929–1937.

Andrews, J., & Higson, H. (2008). Graduate Employability, ‘Soft Skills’ Versus ‘Hard’ Business Knowledge: A European Study. Higher Education in Europe, 33(4), 411–422. doi:10.1080/03797720802522627.

Anthony, S., & Garner, B. (2016). Teaching Soft Skills to Business Students: An Analysis of Multiple Pedagogical Methods. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 33(4), 411–422. doi:10.1177/2329490616642247.

Ariana, S. M. (2010). Some Thoughts on Writing Skills. Annals of Faculty of Economics, 1(1), 127–133.

Beard, D. F., Schwieger, D., & Surendran, K. (2008). Integrating soft skills assessment through university, college, and programmatic efforts at an AACSB accredited institution. Journal of Information Systems Education, 19(2), 229–240.

Chamorro‐Premuzic, T., Arteche, A., Bremner, A. J., Greven, C., & Furnham, A. (2010). Soft skills in higher education: importance and improvement ratings as a function of individual differences and academic performance. Educational Psychology, 30(2), 221–241. doi:10.1080/01443410903560278.

Clarke, M. (2016). Addressing the Soft Skills Crisis. Strategic HR Review, 10(3), 137–139. doi:10.1108/shr-03-2016-0026.

Dean, S. S., & East, J. I. (2019). Soft Skills Needed for the 21st-Century Workforce. International Journal of Applied Management and Technology, 18(1), 17–32. doi: 10.5590/IJAMT.2019.18.1.02.

Duffy, F. D., Gordon, G. H., Whelan, G., Cole-Kelly, K., & Frankel, R. (2004). Assessing Competence in Communication and Interpersonal Skills: The Kalamazoo II Report. Academic Medicine, 79(6), 495–507.

European Training Foundation (2014). Skills 2020 Kosovo. Retrieved February 3, 2021, from https://www.etf.europa.eu/sites/default/files/m/EEA7D2D346427EEDC1257D960038457A_FRAME%20Skills%202020%20Kosovo.pdf

European Commission (2019). Commission Staff Working Document - Kosovo* 2019 Report. Retrieved February 4, 2021, from https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/20190529-kosovo-report.pdf

Finch, D. J., Hamilton, L. K., Baldwin, R., & Zehner, M. (2013). An exploratory study of factors affecting undergraduate employability. Education + Training, 55(7), 681–704. doi:10.1108/ET-07-2012-0077.

Garson, D. D. (2009). Multivariate GLM, Manova and Mancova. Topics in multivariate analysis Statnotes. Retrived December, 18, 2020, from http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa765/statnote.htm

Harvey, L. (2000). New Realities: The Relationship between Higher Education and Employment. Tertiary Education and Management, 55(7), 681–704. doi:10.1023/A:1009685205201.

Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, T. D. (2012). Hard Evidence on Soft Skills. Labour Economics, 19, 451-464. doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2012.05.014.

Kendall, M. G. (1938). A New Measure of Rank Correlation. Biometrica, 30(1/2), 81. doi:10.2307/2332226.

Krasniqi, B. (2019). Labour Market and Skills Needs Analysis: Perspective for the future (1st ed.). Besnik Krasniqi – Prishtinë : ALLED2.

Lahope, R. R., Worang, F. G., & Gunawan, E. (2020). The Importance of Soft Skills Training on Company Performance at Bni Tolitoli Branch Office. Jurnal EMBA: Jurnal Riset Ekonomi, Manajemen, Bisnis Dan Akuntansi, 8(1), 469–479. doi:10.35794/emba.v8i1.27784.

Matsouka, K., & Mihail, D. M. (2016). Graduates’ employability: What do graduates and employers think? Industry and Higher Education, 30(5), 321–326. doi:10.1177/0950422216663719.

Nusrat, M., & Naz, K. (2018). Soft Skills for Sustainable Employment: Does it Really Matter? International Journal of Management and Economics Invention, 4(7), 1835–1837. doi:10.31142/ijmei/v4i7.03.

Patacsil, F. F., & Tablatin, C. L. S. (2017). Exploring the Importance of Soft and Hard Skills as Perceived by IT Internship students and Industri: A Gap Analysis. Journal of Technology and Science Education, 7(3), 347–368. doi:10.3926/jotse.271.

Poon, J. (2012). Real estate graduates’ employability skills: The perspective of human resource managers of surveying firms. Property Management, 30(5), 416–434. doi:10.1108/02637471211273392.

Robles, M. M. (2012). Executive Perceptions of the Top 10 Soft Skills Needed in Today’s Workplace. Business Communication Quarterly, 75(4), 453–465. doi:10.1177/1080569912460400.

Singh, A., & Jaykumar, P. (2019). On the road to consensus: key soft skills required for youth employment in the service sector. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes. doi:10.1108/WHATT-10-2018-0066.

Srivastava, N., & Kuri, M. (2020). Soft Skills: An Integral Part of Technical Education. In: V. Goar, M. Kuri, R. Kumar, T. Senjyu, (Eds.), Advances in Information Communication Technology and Computing (pp. 189–193). Springer Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-5421-6_19.

Teng, W., Ma, C., Pahlevansharif, S., & Turner, J. J. (2019). Education + Training Graduate readiness for the employment market of the 4th industrial revolution: The development of soft employability skills. Education + Training, 61(5), 590–604. doi:10.1108/et-07-2018-0154.

UN. (2016). Sustainable Development Goal. January 25, 2021, from https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf

Opublikowane

2021-06-17

Jak cytować

SHEHU LOKAJ, A. ., Miftari, V., & Hajdari, V. (2021). Leading students towards a new soft-skills perspective: development for employment. Journal of Education Culture and Society, 12(1), 283–296. https://doi.org/10.15503/jecs2021.1.283.296