Employers Evaluation On Attributes Obtained During Industrial Training

Transcription

1 Employers Evaluation On s Obtained During Industrial M.Z.Omar*, N.T. Kofli, K. Mat, Z.M.Darus, S.A. Osman, M.N.A. Rahman, S. Abdullah Faculty of Engineering Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600, UKM Bangi, Selangor MALAYSIA Abstract: - This paper discusses employers evaluation on engineering and architecture students from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia during Industrial program. The employers were asked to evaluate the trainees using a set of questions containing attributes outlined in the course program outcomes. A total of 402 students from five departments (four engineering and one architecture) under the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment have carried out their training for two months at various organisations. The training commenced on the 5 th May and ended on the 4 th July A total of 383 trainees have been evaluated by the employers. Overall, the trainees from the four engineering departments obtained good evaluation from the employers. The employers are mostly satisfied with these trainees ability to carry out instructions but most dissatisfied with their leadership ability. The architecture trainees on the other hand fared lower according to the employers. The lowest score is the attribute that is associated with the ability to understand law and policy related to architecture practice. Key-Words: employers evaluation; industrial training; program outcomes 1 Introduction The industrial training program at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (a.k.a. National University of Malaysia) is carried out for the duration of two months. Engineering students have to complete at least six (6) full time academic semesters, and four (4) for architecture students, before they are allowed to undertake the training. There are 5 departments in the faculty, they are Civil Engineering and Structure (JKAS); Electric, Electronic Engineering and System (JKEES); Chemical Engineering and Process (JKKP); Mechanical Engineering and Materials Department (JKMB) and Architecture (JSB). The training is also compulsory for engineering students as required by the Board of Engineers Malaysia through Malaysian Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) [1]. They were placed at various agencies from government to private sectors which cover 13 different types of industries. The evaluation by the employers was carried out during the training by filling a set of questionnaires designed based on the programme outcomes set by the faculty. The duration of the training was from 5 th May to 4 th July 2008, or from 4th May to 3rd July 2008 (in Malaysia, the working days for some provinces is from Monday to Friday, while some others is from Sunday to Friday). The objectives of the industrial training are to expose the students to the engineering/architectural practice which is specific to their course specialisation and to the nature of the industry selected; to expose the students to the responsibility of an engineer/architecture and the engineering/architectural profession; and to develop the students communication skills that include daily interaction within the working environment and technical writing. These objectives cover some of the engineering/architecture program outcomes as outlined by the faculty. To measure the achievement of some of these outcomes, a list of attributes was designed, as further discussed in section 3. Thus, the evaluation exercise can be used as a tool to measure the competency of the trainees with respect to these attributes, from the employers perspective. This paper presents data from these evaluation exercise, and will be used to further improved the industrial training program offered. 2 Research Methodology The evaluation by the employers were carried out using a 5-point Likert Scale given as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 that is interpreted as very weak, weak, average, good and excellent. In order to simplify the report, rating given to scales 1 and 2 are grouped together as weak, ISSN: ISBN:

2 those for scales 4 and 5 are grouped as good and scale 3 is considered as average. For this paper, only result for good are shown in Figures 2(a) to 3(b) Two different sets of attributes were designed for engineering and architecture programs respectively. This is so because the two programs have different sets of program outcomes. 3 Result and Analysis 3.1 Profiles of Respondents JKMB 23% JKKP 19% JSB 6% Fig.1: Student profiles based on department JKAS 28% JKEES 24% A total of 383 students were evaluated by the employers. Fig. 1 shows that 28% of these students come from JKAS, followed by JKEES with 24%, JKMB with 23%, JKKP with 19% and JSB with 6% (i.e. 359 students come from engineering departments, balance from architecture). 3.2 Employers evaluation during training Engineering Department The students are evaluated using 20 attributes as shown in Table 1 below. For ease of reporting, each attribute is coded as a1 to a20 respectively. The evaluation by the employers are given in Fig. 2(a) and Fig. 2(b). The values indicate the percentage of students evaluated as good by the employers. Overall, the employers were quite satisfied with the attributes possessed by the engineering students. From the 20 attributes, only three recorded lower scores than 80%. At a glance these scores may indicate that the students generally performed well during the training. The lowest score was for attribute a4, that is for leadership quality, whereby 67% of the students were rated as good by the employers. Eventhough this is the lowest score, it is however a commendable figure to achieve. CODE a1 a2 a3 a4 a5 a6 a7 a8 a9 a10 a11 a12 a13 a14 a15 a16 a17 a18 a19 a20 Table 1: s measured during training (engineering programme) ATTRIBUTE Adequate background knowledge Ability to apply knowledge Ability to function as a team player Ability to function as a leader Ability to carry out instructions Possess good work ethics Responsible Awareness on related global and environmental issues Disciplined and motivated Recognise the needs of lifelong learning Ability to extract information from various sources Approachable and creative Listening skills Negotiation skills Multi-cultural and multi-racial awareness Related techical skills Ability to express ideas (verbal) Ability to express ideas (written) Comprehension Independent The figures also indicate that the highest score was given by the employers to attribute a5, that is ability to carry out instructions, with 96% of the students obtained good rating. This is again commendable as the high mark may indicate that majority of the trainees are good and fast learners. This is supported by the high approval rating that are also given to attributes a19, comprehension, and a2, ability to apply knowledge, at 83% and 87% respectively. This assessment is significant as a study by Fallows and Steven (2000) [2] indicated that many employers require graduates to make ISSN: ISBN:

3 contribution immediately on starting work and they need to develop their skills in a short time. faculty have been successful in preparing future engineering workforce as required by the market. a10 a20 95 a9 a19 83 a8 85 a18 82 a7 91 a17 82 a6 a5 a4 a a16 a15 a a2 87 a13 89 a1 71 a12 86 Fig. 2(a): Students Performance during Industrial The slight setback here is that the scores for attributes a1, adequate background knowledge, and a16, related technical skills, at 71% and 75% respectively, are the second and third lowest in this evaluation exercise. Perhaps this might be related to the fact that National University of Malaysia is not a technical university, but rather a traditional theoretical university where the focused was not on hands-on skill training. Another point is that not many industries in Malaysia conduct their own research and development programs but rather mainly involve in production and manufacturing. The employers perception on technical attributes of engineering work force in Malaysia can also be referred to Omar et.al. (2007) [3]. Feedback from employers had also indicated the importance of having workforce with high competency on generic or soft skills as discussed by Azami et. al. (2007) [4]. These are attributes other than technical such as communication, team work, problem solving skills, listening, negotiating and various others (refer Malaysian Qualification Agency [5]). It is a relieve to see the attributes that can be category as the soft skills, such as attributes a6, work ethics, a13, listening skills, a14, negotiation skills, a15, cultural awareness, a17 and a18, communication skills, and various others obtained high approval rating from the employers. These data may imply that the engineering programs offered by the a11 Fig. 2(b): Students Performance during Industrial Architecture Department Table 2 shows a list of 15 attributes measured during industrial training for architecture program. They are coded as b1 to b15 as shown. The evaluation by the employers are given in Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(b). The values, as discuss earlier, indicate the percentage of students evaluated as good by the employers. The overall good rating as given by the employers for architecture trainees was not as good as for the engineering counterparts. Only three attributes scored 75% or more. These are b8, ability to wotk in team, b13, computer literacy, at % (highest for architecture trainees), and b14, discipline and obedient, at 88%. Only 29% of the trainees were rated as good for attribute b12, ability to understand policy and bulding law, which is also the lowest score. The second lowest were attributes b3 and b7, i.e. for ability to manage design process and ability to lead in design development respectively. These attributes are actually measure the leadership quality of the trainees. Perhaps, one of the major reasons for the low score was the fact that industrial training for architecture students was carried out after they have completed 4 acedemic semesters (in other word, after completing 2 full time academic years). 87 ISSN: ISBN:

4 Perhaps the training comes too soon before they could equip themselves better in order to fulfil the expectation of the employers. In contrast, industrial training for the engineering counterparts was carried out after they have completed 3 full time academic years. Another aspect that worth investigating is the correlation of the different set of intakes for the two engineering and architecture programs. Table 2: s measured during training (architecture programme) CODE ATTRIBUTE b1 Ability to produce good concept design b2 Ability to produce detailed design b3 Ability to manage design process b4 Knowledge on the requirement of the design process b5 Ability to monitor design development b6 Ability to coordinate design development b7 Ability to lead in design development b8 Ability to work in team b9 Ability to communicate ideas with colleague b10 Ability to communicate ideas to the management b11 Ability to understand document and detailing b12 Ability to understand policy and bulding law b13 Computer literacy b14 Discipline and obedient b15 Ability to understand clients needs b8 b7 b6 b5 b4 b3 b2 b Fig. 3(a): Students Performance during Industrial 75 b15 b14 b13 b12 b11 b10 b Fig. 3(b): Students Performance during Industrial Another worrying aspect was the low score for communication skills, i.e. attributes b9, ability to communicate ideas with colleague and b10, ability to communicate ideas with the management. Only 58% and 50% of the students were rated as good for these attributes respectively. As quoted above, leadership quality and communication skills are two of the many soft skills that require attention as outlined by the MQA. Apart from the technical components, the students need to be prepared on their soft skills before they could be sent to industries so that they can benefit better from the internship. It is also perhaps the architecture students could benefit more if the training is carried out after they have completed 3 full academic years as their engineering counterparts. 4 Conclusion In conclusion, the report exhibit evaluation on internship trainees from employers on various attributes identified by both engineering and architecture programs. It is evident that generally the engineering internship trainees performed better than their architecture counterparts. The engineering trainees for example scored more than 80% good rating from the employers for almost all of the attributes evaluated. The architecture trainees on the other hand, have only two attributes that were rated higher than 80%. The architecture program should also seriously look into the effort to improve the leadership and communication attributes of their students. The 88 ISSN: ISBN:

5 possibility of offerring the industrial internship program at the end of the third academic year for the architecture students should also be considered. References: [1] Engineering Accreditation Council Manual, 3rd Edition, Available online at [2] S. Fallows and C. Steven, 2000, Integrating Key Skills in Higher Education, London, United Kingdom. [4] Azami Zaharim, Shahrum Abdullah, Mohd Zaidi Omar, Hassan Basri, Farah Liza Mohd Isa, 2007, Gap Analysis On Employers Engineering Graduates In Malaysia Based On Generic Skill Criteria, Proceedings The Association of South East Asian Institutions of Higher Education (ASAIHL), pp [5] Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA): Code of practice for Institutional Audit, 2008, Selangor, Malaysia. [3] M. Z. Omar, S. M. Haris, A. Zaharim, S. Abdullah, N.A. Nik Mohamed, H. Basri, 2007, Employers Perception on Technical s of Engineering Graduates in Malaysia, 2 nd Regional Conference on Engineering Education (RCEE), pp ISSN: ISBN: