Nor Fadila Mohd Amin

Instructional Competencies Required by Technical College Teachers for Effective Performance in Technical Drawing

The National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB) chief examiners reported that instructors employed to teach the students lack the required competencies in teaching methods in Technical Drawing (TD), which leads to poor performance. Therefore, a study was conducted to identify the instructional competencies required by technical college teachers in teaching TD. To achieve this objective, 3 (three) research questions were formulated to guide the study. The population of the study comprised 103 technical college teachers in Ondo state, Nigeria. A structured questionnaire of 38 items was used for data collection. The instrument was face validated by 3 (three) experts. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions and the reliability of the instrument was also established using Cronbach’s Alpha, with the reliability coefficient being 0.84. Based on the findings, it was determined that technical college teachers required the identified 15 instructional competencies to teach effectively. It was also found that there are factors that militate against the teachers’ competencies. The study’s findings contributed to identifying these factors and to how the competencies could be enhanced.

A Conceptual Model of Scenario Based Learning for Developing Higher Order Thinking Skills in Engineering Education

Engineering educators always belief that teaching and learning activities in their classrooms should closely represent what is happening in business and industry sectors. After an extensive literature review on active learning approach, researchers found that Scenario Based Learning should be incorporated in today’s classrooms. Scenario Based Learning is one of the active learning approaches which adopt industrial environment into the classrooms. In addition it can also develop students’ higher order thinking Skills. This study used qualitative research approach to gather data from reputable journals and experts in the attempt to suggest a conceptual model of Engineering Education program which can develop engineering students’ higher order thinking skills (HOTS).

Technical skills competency level among students at vocational colleges in Malaysia

Competency is the ability to perform a task which covers aspects of knowledge, skills and attitude which can be derived from experiences and process of learning. This study aimed to identify the technical skills competency level of students. This quantitative research using questionnaires and survey was conducted among mechanical program students at Vocational Colleges in three states. Data were analyzed descriptively in the form of frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. The findings of the study show that the technical skills level of competency for students in Mechanical Program from three courses namely, Automotive Technology, Welding Technology, Air Conditioning And Refrigeration Technology” is at a high level. However, Industrial Machining Technology” students are at a moderate level. Therefore, improvements for each program need to be addressed to ensure that students possess the technical skills competency which are significant for their future undertakings.

Reliability and Validity Evidence of Instrument Measuring Competencies for Superior Work Performance

A competency assessment tool (The Star-Chef Self-Assessment Tool—SC-SAT) was developed and tested to measure employee’s competency-based on six elements which are the technical, nontechnical, personal quality, self-concept, physical state, and motive. The SC-SAT consists of 159 items measuring these six elements. The sample of this study involved 111 culinary professionals in 4-star and 5-star Malaysian hotels. The instrument was analyzed using Winstep software, software based on Rasch measurement model for polytomous data. The result demonstrates that the SC-SAT has very high item reliability (0.94) with item separation index of 4.02. However, the constructs of physical state and self-concept have separation value lower than 2.0, representing less variation of items. Person reliability is 0.99 with person separation index of 8.78. Only physical state construct have person separation index lower than 2.0, which is 1.72. The raw variance explained by measures is 41.8 % above the 40 % limit expected in Rasch Analysis. The unexplained variance in the 1st contrast of 5.5 % is obtained. Based on the result, the Star-Chef Self-Assessment Tool (SC-SAT) is beneficial in measuring the competencies of culinary professionals.