Saudi Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (SJHSS)
Volume-2 | Issue-01 | 106-110
Original Research Article
College Students’ Perceptions of the Embedded Soft Skills Elements Program in Accounting Courses
Syed Ismail Syed Mohamad, Fidlizan Muhammad, Mohd Yahya Mohd Hussin, Nurul Fadly Habidin
Published : Jan. 30, 2017
Abstract
This study was designed to examine the perspective of the student-teachers’ on the embedded soft skills
program implemented in one of the public universities in Malaysian. The study sought to identify the most frequently
learned soft skill elements in accounting courses; the relationship between awareness of the soft skills learned and the
soft skills grade-performance evaluation; the most effective strategy used to adapt the soft skill elements; and, finally, to
analyze the learning outcome achievement of the soft skills learned through accounting student-teachers’ perspective.
The researcher surveyed 122 accounting student-teachers from the Faculty of Management and Economics (FME) using
an adapted questionnaire from The Effectiveness of Academic Programs at Higher Education Institutions towards
Lifelong Learning by Amaludin, Lee, Pandian, and Sirat [10] with coefficient alpha 0.92. The findings indicated the most
frequently integrated soft skill elements in the accounting courses were critical thinking and problem solving. The
relationship between awareness of the soft skill elements and marks of soft skills indicated the existence of a relationship
that was statistically correlated at a p value less than 0.05with r= .460 for the highest relationship that existed between
awareness of soft skill in leadership skills and marks of soft skills. Problem-based learning strategy was the most
effective strategy used by the lecturers in adapting the soft skills learned, and the accounting student-teachers believed
the learning objectives of the embedded 7 soft skill elements were achieved within the range of 57.4 to 88.5%.