Teaching competency among academic staff of Malaysian private universities: an exploratory study

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1 Page34 ISSN: Vol. 2 (4): Teaching competency among academic staff of Malaysian private universities: an exploratory study Muhammad Faizal A. Ghani University Malaya, Malaysia mdfaizal@um.my Tengku Noorainun Tengku Shahadan UNITAR International University, Malaysia Mohd Shahir Liew University Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia Abstract Academic staff plays an important role in delivering knowledge and skills to students in an organizational academic environment. Private universities in Malaysia are not exempted from this axiom. The academic staff is considered as a leader, instructor, facilitator and above all Subject Matter Expert (SME). Furthermore, they have the challenging task to deliver the subject matter, create a positive classroom environment, exhibit exemplary personality, and showing high level of praise and encouragement to the students. In this modern day, there is a strong demand for competent staff. Competency is a complex process whereby it involves the interaction of staff, students and environments. 400 academic staff was involved in this study. Most of the researchers agreed that competencies deliberated are focused on three strong factors such as knowledge, ability and skills. This study analyzes the need for competency based attributes to be ingrained within academic staff in a Private University in Malaysia. The study herein emphasizes on three competency dimensions namely; personal dimension, academic dimension and work place dimension. The finding shows that there is a high level of relationships between the demographic variables, e.g. job title, tenure and ethnicity and the three competency dimensions. A development of a competency model for academic staff is proposed to ensure they provide quality students that in turn will transform into world-class global workers. Keywords: competency, academic staff, private university, personal dimension, academic dimension, work place dimension Citation: Ghani, M. F. A., Shahadan, T. N. T., and Liew, M. S. (2013).Teaching competency among academic staff of Malaysian private universities: an exploratory study., 2(4): Available online at

2 Page35 1. INTRODUCTION Admittedly, competent human capital has become an important element for the success of an organization, particularly in the context of modern business. Thus, some of the competency models developed and applied in an organization is to evaluate staff performance. The competency model was embraced by an early study done by McClelland (1973), entitled Testing Competence rather than Intelligence. To date, some competency model have become a 'code word' and 'practice' to almost all of the world's Human Resources Department (HRD) in planning their core businesses and industries. Planning involves recruiting, selecting, placing, and providing training for the intent of evaluating staff performance. According to Kettunen (2011) this concept is becoming a necessity in higher education, as serve as fundamental platform to nurture and secure talent for the future of the country and the next generation. In Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) be it public or private university, academic staff plays an important role to develop, modify and implement the education policy agenda. Therefore, the staff should have competence (Rothwell, 2002). The role is becoming increasingly important as this is indicated by the change in the teaching and learning environment in an institution. This is being spurred by the higher demand for quality education. In spite of that, it is imperative that Malaysia should not rely heavily on foreign aid in providing quality education as this would undermine the development of local competency in the long run. Meanwhile, in terms of educational policy formulation, the government has formulated the National Higher Education Strategic Plan and with second phase The policy focuses and leads to the development of staff competency levels in the organization. It is stated by the Minister of Higher Learning Malaysia, YB Dato Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, that the objective of the plan as a hub of excellence for higher education. The development of higher education organizations through staff competency as the following strategies (a) strengthening its human capital, (b) creativity and innovation to enrich everyone in the organization, (c) maximize the ecosystem of higher education, (d) benefit of the globalization and (e) professional transformational leadership (Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, 2010). The plan is aimed at making local private universities competitive with at off in a developed country. Our aspirations will be achieved if every citizen in the educational organization has a high level of competency.. Available online at

3 Page Problems in academic competence The culture within the academic competence in private universities claims to be comprehensive and prudent. It is so because private universities have a group of academic staff that serve the needs and level of competence in various respected fields. On the contrary, Bertoncelj, Kovac and Bertoncel (2009) stated that competence is closely related to the phase of evolution, this indicates that academic staff should take the initiative to be a team that not only improves the level of competence and effectiveness in the same field, but take a more proactive competent across different fields. Competent academic staff development across the field requires specific competency characteristics. Thus the characteristics of competence require a sound implementation strategy and are one of the factors that can contribute to an improvement in students' academic performance. The view one the characteristic of an effective competency varies across different literatures and individuals. In Malaysia, it is due to lack of volume that there is difficulty in coming to a conclusive result of characteristics leading to competency. Abdul Rahim, Mohd Najib and Lily Ting (2010) described the problems with their finding is due to a lack sufficient literature during the study. In fact, existing local studies often cross-reference their findings with that of at developed country as their reference model. Therefore, under taking effort to identify the factors of competence of academic staff is a very important thing and is seen to have many benefits not only for career development as academic staff, but more importantly, to be a catalyst for the success of a particular public institution of higher education and private institutions of higher learning in general. This means that the need for a transformation process that can lead to a positive change and continuous improvement of the existing culture is imperative. For example, Dubois (1993) and Lucia and Lepsinger (1999) reflects this by explaining the need for personal transformation character staff such as mental, intellectual, cognitive, social, emotional, and physical or psychomotor attitude in completing tasks. One thing to be noted is that competent academic staff serves as a platform to propel the private universities recognition and value by the industry and the community. If the features of a competency model and the implementation strategy undertaken by academic staff yields positively, then the industry s perception to students that a private university education yields is positive or vice versa. Therefore, academic excellence and competence are crucial to those who continue to look for knowledge, new ideas and approaches through an environment and a culture of learning and teaching in a private university. Cheetham and Chivers (1996) emphasized that the staff is sufficiently competent to understand the involvement of the use. Available online at

4 Page37 of their thinking abilities in solving tasks given by the employer. Some of the academic staff is technically-oriented while some others have greater social relationship skills. Thus a culture program within the academic competence is necessary as defined by Jones, Voorhees and Paulson (2002) as it relates the competency requirements to a set of criteria to assess competency based learning objectives. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW According to Michelle (2008) in her writings stated that competency model is a tool that classifies each job either in the public or private sector. However, Bolden and Gosling (2006) claims that competence is a condition that is 'related'. Bertoncelj, Kovac and Bertoncel (2009) stated that the ability of an organization to survive in the market is through the process of transformation. The duties and responsibilities of staff should be in line with the evolution of the non-profit environment in order to compete and remain in the market. Similarly for, public and private universities, in order to meet the competitive quality of education, the management have to create or add new value. The new values are then promoted to academic staffs who are competent enough to take up the values and to make an organization succeed and even more outstanding. Early Childhood / generalist Standards (2001), outlines the five core philosophy of competencies. For academic staff they are as follows, a) pledge to commit to educating students, b) know the intricacies of the subject and have education and knowledge requirements, c) fully responsible for organizing and monitoring the education of students, d) a more systematic thinking through experience, and e) an important socializing with the community around them. Furthermore, according to Habsah and Aminuddin (2009) the principles and theories of holistic education were proposed by educators or fellow philosophers such as Montessori, Pestalozzi, Miller, and Clark or as early as the time of ancient Greek philosopher Socrates and Plato. They added that the potential of the individual is the element of physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Education is a deliberate activity and therefore 'intentional'; implemented with the aim of learning activities and are considered with the main focus of promoting skills and education (Carr, 1996). 3. THEORTITICAL FRAMEWORK Based on Figure 1, the requirements analysis stage is made up of a Three-Dimensional Academic Staff Competency private university model obtained from the literature review of six deferent competency models in a learning and business transactions organization with. Available online at

5 Page38 varying current and historical highlights. Before the implementation of the design, the needs analysis need to be performed in order to determine the objective of the study. Therefore, the design stage is the stage that requires researchers to execute the planned design model. This involves the collection and analysis of sample data. Furthermore, the evaluation involves assessing the nature of formative and summative assessment competency model design of academic staff at private universities. Need Analysis Stage Design Stage Three-dimensional competencies of academic staff; - Personal - Academic - Work place Analysis Stage Walter Dick and Lau Carey (1978) ADDIE Model (2003) Academic competency model of private universities Figure 1: Conceptual framework of study 3.1 Objective This study aims to explore the academic staff competencies at private universities in Malaysia. The focus of the study is based on three competency dimensions: personal, academic and work place competency. Therefore, the objective of the study is to identify if there is a correlation between the academic staff competency and demographic factors such as years of services in academic environment, job title and ethnicity. 3.2 Three competency dimensions The three competency dimensions outline as follows: (a) Personal competency Personal competency refers to an individual's character as a function of an academic staff s interaction of self-control, dealing with emotions and feelings, and physiological.. Available online at

6 Page39 (b) Academic competency Academic competency that builds on the skills, knowledge and comprehension or understanding of the 'know-why'. It is related to an academic staff s use of cognitive skills in solving problems. (c) Workplace competency Workplace competency focused on job know-how for example, understand the directions and organizational goals, capability and understanding the institutional culture and coordination of action such as adapting to a new technology, two-way interaction skills and teamwork. 4. METHODOLOGY 4.1 Sample and data collection method The survey sample consists of 400 academic staff private universities who are Malaysian citizens and holds a Master's degree. For the importance of this study, the selection of the sample size was carried out in various stages. Selection method was made due to its suitability for obtaining samples from a large number and widespread population. The overall size of the population of private academic universities in Malaysia holds a Masters in 2012 is a total of people. For the study, researchers refer to the formula prescribed by Krejcie and Morgan (1970) in determining the sample size. A structured administered questionnaire using 5-point Likert scale was used in assessing the staff academics feedbacks. The choice of location for survey activities are in accordance with the latest number of private universities level from 2007 until Data are obtained from the official repository of the Department of Higher Education Malaysia (DHEM). Out of 29 private universities, the study managed to get only 23 private universities to participate. 4.2 Instrument According to Creswell (2009), the instrument can be built yourself, innovated from the existing instruments or a merger between the two. He added that the information on the instrument was considered an important component in the plan to collect data. For the purpose of this study, instruments were made based on researchers modified instruments to suit with the culture and the nature of the environment study in Malaysia.. Available online at

7 Page40 5. FINDING AND DISCUSSION 5.1 Reliability analysis Julie Pallant (2010) used the Kruskal-Wallis test as an alternative to non-parametric oneway analysis of variance between groups. The test is to ensure comparability in scores and continuous measurements to groups of three or more variables. This explorative study is used to answer forth the question; is there a significant correlation between the academic staff competence at private universities in Malaysia based on years of services in education field, job title, and ethnicity. Table 1 shows the results of the analysis of the validity and reliability of questionnaires used in the pilot study. The pilot study involved 30 academic staff from one private university at Klang Valley. Table 1: Validity and Reliability of the Questionnaire Items with Cronbach Alpha Value Item No Item Cronbach Alfa Value Part I Personal Competency - Self-control Emotions and Feeling Psychological Part II Academic Competency - Skills Knowledge Comprehension Part III Workplace competency - Direction and Organizational Goals Institutional Culture Coordination of actions Descriptive statistics and analysis The findings showed that the distribution of years in service in the educational field was higher for 11 to 25 years of services with a total of 217 participants (54.2%). On the other hand, there were 301 participants with lecturer positions or 75.2 percent out of the total 400 participants. The ethnicity of the participants showed that most of them were Malay, 301 participants or 75.2%, 83 or 20.8% were Chinese and the rest 16 participants were Indians or 4.0%.. Available online at

8 Page41 Table 2: Participants Based on Years Service in the Field of Education, Job Title and, Ethnicity. Participants Profile Number of (people) Percentage (%) Years service in Education Field Less than 10 years years years More than 36 years TOTAL Job Title Associcate Professor Senior Lecturer Lecturer Assistant Lecturer TOTAL Ethnicity Malay Chinese Indian Others 0.0 TOTAL Next, the analysis of the following is the test statistic of Spearman's rho correlation was used to examine the correlation between these factors in designing a competency model for academic staff in private universities. Shown by the significant correlation coefficient r whereby significance level at 0.01 (two-tailed) and 0.05 (two-tailed). Correlations are described as a function of high correlation, medium correlation and low correlation. Valuation is based on Cohen (1988) quoted from Jullie Pallant (2010) which indicate a high level of r =.50 to 1.0, moderate levels of r =.30 to.49 and r =.10 weak level to.29. Correlation values shown in Table 3 as follows. 5.3 Years of services in education field Dimensions I Personal competency with three sub-theme, high level of correlation for Self-control (KPP1) (r=1.000), high level of correlation for Emotion and Feeling (KPP2) (r=.557), weak level of correlation for Psychological (KPP3) (r=.147). Dimension II Academic competency with three sub-theme, high level of correlation for Skills (KAA1) (r=.944), weak level of correlation for Knowledge (KAA2) (r=.013), and high level of correlation for Comprehension (KAA3) (r=.730). For dimensions III - Workplace competency, there are also three sub-themes, high level of correlation for Direction and Organizational goals (KTK1) (r=.906), high level of correlation for Institutional Culture. Available online at

9 Page42 (KTK2) (r=.863), and moderate level of correlation for Coordination of Action (KTK3) (r=.396) Table 3: Correlation between Years of Services in Educational Fields, Job Titles and Ethnicity and Three Competency Dimensions KPP1 KPP2 KPP3 KAA1 KAA2 KAA3 KTK1 KTK2 KTK3 Years Services Significance Job Titles Significance Ethnicity Significance ** Significance level 0.01 (2-tailed) *Significance level 0.05 (2-tailed) 5.4 Job Titles Dimension I - Personal competency with three of sub-theme, moderate level of correlation for Self-control (KPP1) (r=.421), moderate level of correlation for Emotion and Feeling (KPP2) (r=.406), weak level of correlation for Psychological (KPP3) (r=.159). For dimension II - Academic competency, moderate level of correlation for sub-theme, Skills (KAA1) (r=.467), weak level of correlation for Knowledge (KAA2) (r=.037), and weak level of correlation for Comprehension (KAA3) (r=.102). For dimension III - Workplace competency, high level of correlations for the Direction and Organizational goals (KTK1) (r=.523), however, weak level of correlation for Institutional Culture (KTK2) (r=.106), and high level of correlation for Coordination of Action (KTK3) (r=.750) 5.5 Ethnicity For dimension I - Personal competency with three sub-theme, weak level of correlation for Self-control (KPP1) (r=.147), however, high level of correlation for Emotion and Feeling (KPP2) (r=.849), but weak level of correlation for Psychological (KPP3) (r=.127). For dimension II - Academic competency, there are also high level correlation for the first subtheme, Skills (KAA1) (r=.588), and moderate level of correlation for both Knowledge (KAA2) (r=.496), and Comprehension (KAA3) (r=.466). For dimension III - Workplace competency with three sub-theme, high level of correlation for Direction and Organizational goals (KTK1) (r=.804), weak level of correlation for Institutional Culture (KTK2) (r=.110), and high level of correlation for Coordination of Action (KTK3) (r=.864). Available online at

10 Page43 Based on the correlation value is shown in Table 3, in conclusion, all the competency items were related to the factors discussed above, but at a high, moderate and low level at different sub-theme of competencies. The correlation value is a value r that varies between positive or negative values. Positive r values mean variables have a linear relationship in which aspects of the competency of first priority are directly related to the factors of study. Whereas when the value of r is negative, this means the competency aspect is inversely related to the factors of study. Thus, the correlation that exists shows that there is relationship between the years of services in education, job title, and ethnicity of the academic staff in the competency private universities. 6. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RECOMMENDATION Overall, relationship academic competence is very high regardless of gender and other factors. Priority of competence building should also be on the interrelation of competence dimensions and sub-themes to academic staff. However, the effectiveness of academic competence by private universities is marginal. This happens because of the different curriculum of private universities, such as academic staffs who teach in technical pedagogy are more competent than academic staff teaching in the form of sciences and art theories and concepts. Ever-changing needs of educational quality demand a high respond from the private institutions in general, and especially the staff. Governmental pressure, societal perception towards the quality of education has made competency of the academic become a serious agenda. The private universities management has to look at a new approach for the 21st century and the importance of enhancing academic staff competences in line with globalization. However, the debate over whether the current situation and the best way to assess needs of private universities, especially in the building and measure of integrity of their academic staff are thus far deemed competent. However, private institutions can no longer skirt the ideas of implementing appropriate strategies or approaches to ensure their level of academic competence is in line with market expectations and the expectations of society. REFERENCES Abdul Rahim, H., Mohd Najib, G. & Lily Ting, H. L. (2010). Teaching competency tesing among Malaysian school teachers. European Journal of Social Sciences, 12(4): Bertoncelj, A., Kovac, D. & Bertoncel, R. (2009). Success factors and competencies in organisational evolution. Kybernetes, 38(9): Available online at

11 Page44 Bolden, R. & Gosling, J. (2006). Leadership competencies: time to change the tune?. Leadership, 2(2): Carr, D. (1996). The dichotomy of liberal versus vocational education: some Basic conceptual geography in Philosophy of education 1995, ed. Alven Neiman. Urbana: Philosophy of education society. Cheetham, G. & Chivers, G. (1996). Towards a holistic model of professional competence. Journal of European Industrial Trainning, 20(5): Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research Design. Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. Third Edition. USA: SAGE Publication. Dubois, D. D. (1993). Competency-based performance improvement: A strategy for organizational change. Amherst, MA: HRD Press, Inc. Habsah I., & Aminuddin, H. (2009). Holistic Education in Malaysia. European Journal of Social Sciences, 9(2): Jones, E., Voorhees, R. & Paulson, K. (2002). Defining and assessing learning: Exploring competency-based initiatives. Washington, DC: Council of the National Postsecondary Education Cooperation. Publication NCES Kettunen, J. (2011). Strategy and quality maps in higher education. US-Education Review, 8(2): Krejcie, R. V. & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational & Psychological Measurement, 30: Laman Web Rasmi Jabatan Pengajian Tinggi. (2011). Lists of private universities. Download at dated 15 July, 2011 from Lucia, A. D. & Lepsinger, R. (1999). The art and science of competency models: Pinpointing critical success factors in organizations. New York: Pfeiffer. McClelland, D. C. (1973). Testing for competence rather than for intelligence. American Psychologist, 28: Michelle, R. E. (2008). Competency models: A review of the literature and the role of the employment and training administration (ETA). Washington: U.S. Department of Labor. Ministry of Higher Education. (2010). PSPTN. Download at dated 25 September, 2012 from Pallant, J. (2010). SPSS Survival Manual: A step by step guide to data analysis using SPSS 4 th edition. England: McGraw Hill. Rothwell, W. J. (2002). The workplace learner: How to align training initiatives with individual learning competencies. New York: American Management Association.. Available online at