Students’ Perceptions of Soft Skills: A Case Study at a Vocational Institution

In today's highly global market, student soft skill acquisition is becoming increasingly important. Most employers now tend to employ graduates who have both hard and soft skills. Some firms are also stressing soft skills over hard skills in some situations. Most subjects, by definition, are soft skills-based for non-technical students. However, the situation could be different for technical students. The subjects covered in their courses are primarily concerned with hard skills. As a result, students are less conscious of the value of soft skills. The context of this study is a vocational institution which provides technical degrees but still gives priority for soft skills training as two courses of soft skills are integrated into the curriculum. The participants are 150 students who have completed two soft skills courses and are working either part time or full time jobs. This study aims to investigate students’ perceptions of three categories of soft skills namely critical thinking skills, problem solving and information management skills. Quantitative data were collected from a questionnaire designed in Google form with Five-point Likert scale, followed by two open-ended questions to explore participants’ evaluation and recommendations of the soft skills training program. The results reveal that almost half of the respondents are not confident about their soft skills. In addition, there are issues concerning the soft skills training programs at the study context.