What Students Need, and What Teacher Did: The Impact of Teacher's Teaching Approaches to the Development of Students’ Generic Competences

Malaysia has moved towards an industrialised country, and the quality and competence of manpower have become one of the main debates. While the focus on generic competences has largely related to definition and standards development, the implementation of these skills is seen as a teaching and learning issue. Thus, this paper analysed and evaluated current teaching and learning practices in Malaysian technical and vocational educational (TVE) system, focusing on polytechnics. The central objective of this study was to examine the current teaching and learning strategies in developing students’ generic competences that focus particularly on teamwork, communication, problem solving and critical thinking skills. The discussion focused on the modes of delivery a lesson by lecturers in teaching an engineering subject (Concrete Technology). It also explored the problems faced in the teaching and learning in providing sufficient competences to students as some of these challenges can be country- specific. A set of questionnaire was employed to 192 first semester students undertaking three-year Civil Engineering Program, in three polytechnics in various states in Malaysia. Semi structured interviews were also conducted to six teachers to gather additional insights regarding teaching approaches, subjects/course value, and the extent of students learning. Findings from this study show that the pattern of teaching and learning processes in the majority of polytechnics are more traditionally focused in which teacher serves as a major repository of knowledge. Whilst students on the other hand, expect more active learning activities that could maximise their involvement. These approaches are found to be inadequate for developing generic competences. It is also found that few factors have influenced teachers in the selection of their preferred teaching approaches. Therefore, this study is significant as it provides a basis for a more effective and systematic structure for teaching and learning processes in polytechnics to respond to the changing needs of the new competent work force.