Exploring engineering employability competencies through interpersonal and enterprise skills

Many researchers in engineering education have studied the engineering curriculum, employability, industrial training, generic skills and gender issues. From a wide spectrum of study, there is a gap around issues of interpersonal skills and enterprise skills in engineering education that has not been studied. Previous study has shown that there is unemployment amongst graduate engineers in Malaysia. This study aimed to assess whether the suggested lack of interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies cause unemployment amongst engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study also intended to appraise whether engineering undergraduates have received a quality work placement appropriate to their learning, knowledge and employability skills and also to create awareness about interpersonal and enterprise skills competencies amongst engineering undergraduates, higher education educators and employers in Malaysia. This study intended to create awareness about the importance of interpersonal and enterprise skills amongst engineers. A mixed method of questionnaire survey and interview was used to access data from fmal year engineering students and employers in Malaysia. Results from the study have provided evidence that interpersonal and enterprise skills are not a major contributor to unemployment of engineering graduates in Malaysia. This study has created new awareness of the subject that will allow the enhancement of the engineering education curriculum. This study has demonstrated that when interviewing companies for the purposes of research into curriculum it is necessary to have full awareness of their culture and ways of working

Interpretasi Manifestasi Fikiran Pengajian Tinggi ke Arah Transformasi Negara.

Artikel ini mengutarakan peranan UTeM dalam mencapai misi pendidikan pengajian tinggi berfokuskan strategi

Mediation Effect of Service Quality on the Relationship of Healthcare Service Innovation and Outpatient Experience

Healthcare organizations play an important role in people's well-being all over the world; good healthcare facilities are extremely beneficial in combating many diseases worldwide. Innovation is one of the most important factors influencing service quality in healthcare organizations worldwide, particularly in the UAE. The pandemic, changing human needs and globalization have made organizations more aware of the importance of improving patients' experiences through improved service quality and innovative services, which has become a winning strategy and provides organizations with a comparative advantage over others through customer confidence building. This research assessed mediating effect of service quality on health services innovation and outpatient experience. The model was developed with the help of SmartPLS software package and the data was gathered through questionnaire survey. Analysis of 397 questionnaire forms were used to analyze direct relations between service quality and service innovation with out-patient experience as well as indirect effect of service innovation on out-patient experience through service quality. The developed model was confirmed through convergent validity and discirminant validity. The R-square reveals that service innovation accounted for approximately 47% of the variation in service quality. While service innovation and service quality explained approximately 80% of the change in outpatient experience. This means that a unit change in both service innovation and service quality improves the outpatient experience by 80%

Mediation Model of Digital Technology Factors Affecting Health Care Service Performance

Healthcare technologies have become a crucial component of healthcare providers' daily operations. Hence, healthcare innovation technologies are being promoted worldwide. Healthcare service technologies are constantly improving necessitates ongoing research to show how these technologies affect healthcare services. Hence, current study investigating the state of innovative digital healthcare service practises in the UAE. It examining the effect of innovative technology on healthcare service performance in the UAE and modeling mediating role of organisational learning capacity in the relationship between innovative technology and healthcare service performance. A structural equation model was developed in SmartPLS software using the data collected of the questionnaire. The model showed that the factors system development, digital services, process integration, and IT base innovations have strong relationship effect to the health care performance. Also, the organisational learning capacity has strong mediation effect on the health services relationship. This research has contributed to current state of literatur regarding digital service innovations related to health service performance in the UAE. The results exphasized a critical need for practationners for promoting developments in digital services impacted the performance of health services

Green Human Resource Management: A Case Of Malaysia

Green human resource management (GHRM) has become a key business strategy for the significant organizations where human resource departments play an active part in going green at the organizations. The main purpose of this study focused on training and development of Employee Knowledge, Employee Skill and Employee Attitude towards the implementation of Green Human Resource Management (GHRM). A total of 150 questionnaires were distributed via email to the organizations who implemented GHRM in Malaysia, but only 100 were returned. The results of the analysis indicated employee skills as the most significant factors for organization to implement GHRM. For the practicality of this study, GHRM is anticipated to be well implemented when the employee skills are emphasize

INCULCATING ETHICS THROUGH ACTION LEARNING

Abstract: Action learning has been one of the strategy in delivering teaching and learning amongst students. Educators and scholars exploring and investigating on ways or methodologies that can ensure teaching and learning activity in class are fun and benefited students as to knowledge, generic skills/soft skills transferred and practices. This study explored ethics transferred amongst students through action learning in mind mapping activity. Researcher found that good values such as integrity and objectivity could be transferred through action learning

Comparing student's perceptions of blended learning and traditional classroom deliveries in an english professional communication course in a technical university

An interview was conducted to under graduates of Bachelor of Computer Engineering and Electronic who were sat for English Professional Communication course at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) in Malaysia. This study compares students' perceptions of the overall satisfaction of the course and the delive1ies methods. One group of students were kept in a traditional in-class section, and another group in a blended-learning section in which the primary course delive1y method was partly online, whereby students met in class on a limited number of occasions. Overall perceptions of the course, lecturer/instructor and learning outcomes were positive for both groups. Students depicted strong inclination that they would use the material in their careers. The majority of students in the blended learning section indicated that they would take another elective course using blended learning approach if it were offered. However, some interesting differences were noted. Specifically, students in the traditional setting were more satisfied with the clarity of instruction. Blended-learning students also indicated fitmly that their analytical skills improved as a result of the course. The results suggest that the two delive1y methods were similar in terms of final learning outcomes

UTeM's Undergraduate Experience on Facebook: Preliminary Findings

Social network sites are becoming more popular and are being used by different groups of people. A market study conducted by Nickburcher (2009) on facebook usage reported that there are now 27 countries with over 1 million people using facebook. Malaysia was reported to have 1,069,260 million of people log on to facebook by March 2009. Among the popular social networking sites are facebook, MySpace and Twitter. However, in Malaysia little is known about how much, why and how users use Facebook. In this study, 100 engineering undergraduates comprises of 50 males and 50 females of Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka completed their reflecting journaling method across five days and supplemented by survey were completed, reporting the prevalence and time spent, why and how they use the facebook. Preliminary findings of the study indicated that females participants spent more often for social interaction with whom they have built offline relationship. Implications of facebook use for the development of identity and peer relationships are discussed

BEST PRACTICES USED BY MALAYSIAN ENVIRONMENTAL WEBSITES: A COMPARISON STUDY

This research is the first attempt to cover best practices for environmental websites in Malaysia. We chose five environmental NGOs in Malaysia (ENGOMs) for a case study, and evaluated website practices they used to communicate their missions and goals. A quantitative data was collected and analysed via content analysis of the five ENGOM websites. The content analysis of the websites sought to determine, identify and assess the best practices of the environmental websites features. The research questions focused on the use of online communication (OC) by ENGOMs in order to advocate specific environmental issues and potentially mobilise government or public action on these issues. How do the ENGOMs effectively use the website to communicate their organisations’ missions and goals? We conducted an extensive literature review to identify features of websites such as the usefulness of information, interactivity, navigability, and design that have been evaluated as important by previous researchers. Then we used these features as a basis for assessing the effectiveness of the practices of environmental websites in Malaysia. The web content analysis demonstrates that all the five ENGOMs had relatively small websites, providing useful information such as mission, goals, and organisation background. Most of the global issues advocated by them were meant to mobilise support and action. This is considered a rather ineffective use of OC. Interactivity features available across their websites were categorised at a ‘low’ level of utilisation. The ENGOMs did not fully utilise them for the purpose of conducting online campaigns and encouraging dialogue. The navigability of the five ENGOMs’ websites was categorised at a ‘good’ level, given that the majority of them provided good and easy navigation. The majority of the websites also met the ‘well designed’ requirements. Overall, the five ENGOMs have delivered most of the best practise features expected in effective environmental websites; Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) was ranked as the best website, while Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) is at the opposite end of the spectrum. ENGOMs’ employees expressed views about enhancing their websites to be more interactive in the future. Financial constraints seemed to be the biggest problem faced by all ENGOMs in their endeavour to develop their websites. However, a key finding is that the websites with more resources did not use them as effectively as websites with fewer resources. Thus, one or two conscientious and well trained employees could be successful with limited resources. Keywords: online communication, interactivity, navigation, web design, online campaigns

Best Website of Practices by Malaysian Environmental NGOs: A Comparative Study

This research is the first attempt to cover best practices for environmental websites in Malaysia. We choose five environmental NGOs in Malaysia (ENGOMs) for a case study and evaluated website practices they used to communicate their missions and goals. A quantitative data was collected and analyzed via content analysis of the five ENGOM websites. The content analysis of the websites sought to determine, identify and assess the best practices of the environmental issues and potentially mobilize government or public action on these issues. How do the ENGOMs effectively use the website to communicate their organizations' missions goals? We conducted an extensive literature review to identify features of websites such as the usefulness of information, interactivity, navigability and design that have been evaluated as important by previous researchers. Then we used these features as a basis for assessing the effectiveness of the practices of environmental websites in Malaysia. The web content analysis demonstrates that all the five ENGOMs had relatively small websites, providing useful information such as mission, goals and organization background. Most of the global issues advocated by them were meant to mobilise support and action. This is considered a rather ineffective use of OC. Interactivity features available across their websites were categorized as a 'low' level of utilization. The ENGOMs did not fully utilize them for the purpose of conducting online campaigns and encouraging dialogue. The navigability of the five ENGOMs websites was categorized at a 'good' level, given that the majority of them provided good and easy navigation. The majority of the websites also met the 'well designed' requirements. Overall, the five ENGOMs have delivered most of the best practice features expected in effective environmental websites; Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) was ranked as the best websites, while Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) is at the opposite end of the spectrum. ENGOMs in their endeavor to develop their websites. However, a key finding is that the websites with more resources did not use them as effectively as websites with fewer resources. Thus, one or two conscientious and well trained employees could be successful with limited resources