Name: Zain Ul Haq Malik The effectiveness of problem-based learning in

technical and vocational education in Malaysia

Class: BBA 8th
Roll# 161242

The importance of soft skills in engineering sector is increasing day by day, according to
various academic sources. Problem Based Learning (PBL) plays a major role in enhancing and
imparting skills in students, due to exposure to real life scenario’s and situations. This in turn
help them greatly in their employment. Having a degree is not enough in Malaysian market.
Students need to have skills to get jobs. By getting technical and vocational education training
(TVET) graduates become job ready with all necessary skills required.
This study highlights difference between academic achievements of students of both traditional
engineering program and higher technical and vocational education training (HTVET). They
are both different as traditional engineering program is comprised of “Minds on” approach.
Whereas, HTVET has “hands-on” approach. Hands on approach increases the students
understanding and improve their grades and grip over a subject. Practical knowledge is
provided, and experiential learning is in effect. Whereas, minds on involve only classroom
knowledge through verbal and graphic means. Traditional education programs focus more on
final exams with 60% weightage. On the contrary, in HTVET 40% weightage is given to final
exams and practical work is given more consideration. HTVET also provides more experience
of the industrial setting by proving 2-week experience in first year of program, 4-week
experience in second year and a full internship experience in final year. Traditional model
requires eight-year experience in industry setting and TVET requires 3 months training in final
year.
Moreover, it is stated that employees usually use a criterion for hiring new employees.
Knowledge, skills, abilities and other. This other in Malaysia is represented by P as personality
trait. Knowledge is acquired by education or experience regarding a particular subject. It
includes set of skills or other descriptive studies. Skills enable us to perform certain tasks
proficiently. Ability is referred to as power to perform something i.e. in context of workplace.
Personality comprises of Big five personality traits namely:
Extraversion: Measure of a person’s social behavior and outgoing behavior.
Openness to experience: Measure of a person’s art loving nature. His ability to try new things
in life.
Agreeableness: Measure describing if a person is yes man or not.
Neuroticism: Measure of a person’s emotional stability.
Conscientiousness: It is the tendency to show self-discipline in a person.
Sample of the conducted study was acquired from University of Kuala-Lumpur. It comprised
of 453 students, among which 215 on engineering track and 238 on HTVET track. 63% of
these were male. Average was 21 and SD 1.5 years. Range from 19-23 was present. Three
baseline measure were included, first recorded gender and age. Second, measured attitude of
students towards engineering. Third, associated with learning style of students. Assessment
1components included a 30 items MCQ’s. 2nd included essay-based exam and 3rd with an oral
test. Time limit was 60 minutes and passing criteria involved 40 percent marks. Correct answer
will be given 1 mark and negative marking of 1 mark will be done for a wrong answer.
Whereas, Oral test involved a 20-minute presentation.
The findings of the study are as expected, PBL approach proved to be more effective for
helping students HTVET platform. As students result showcased that PBL had a profound
impact on learning capabilities of students and is more fruitful in comparison.
This study also has some limitations, including that the data and tests were conducted only
through the University at Kuala Lumpur. It horizon was narrow rather than a broadened
approach for conducting data collection and tests.