Factors Influencing the Improvement of Students’ Communication Skill: An Industrial Training Intervention

Communication skill has been globally recognized as among required attributes for graduates employability. This situation urges the stakeholders to find ways in preparing students with excellent communication skill. An implementation of iCGPA in public universities is one of recent initiatives taken by Ministry of Education with the aims to produce graduates who are balanced in both academics and non-academics. Undergoingindustrial training also is a good platform for students to improve their communication skillas they being exposed to hands-on-work. Thus, this paper aims to examine students‟ communication skill improvement based on industrial training intervention. It also aims to examine the relationship between communication skill improvement and selected factors, and further explore the predictors of this improvement. A quantitative method using pre and post survey was adopted. The survey was conducted among undergraduate students from six different public universities in Malaysia. Overall, findingsof paired sample t-test reveal that students‟ communication skill improvement has developed significantly after undergoing industrial training. The improvement were found to be correlated with program of study, motivation, leadership styles and organizational cultures. Using multiple regression analysis;extrinsic motivation, low power distance culture, medium size of organization and laissez-faire leadership style are the best predictor of communication skill improvement.


Methodology
In order to achieve the research objectives, this study used pre and post survey. The survey was conducted through distribution of questionnaires to student who about to undergo and complete their industrial training. In the pre survey, questionnaires were self-distributed to 2000 undergraduate students from six public universities in Malaysia. However, after data screening, only 1,227 questionnaires were usable. In the post survey, only 485 usable questionnaires were collected. The questionnaire consists of three sections; Section A for demographic profiles (students, supervisors and organization), Section B for students" motivation, supervisors" leadership styles and organizational culture and Section C outlined questions related to communication skill. The communication skill instrument was adapted from various sources (Chen and Starosta, 2000;Duran, 1992). Motivation items were also adapted from various sources like (Chiaburu and Tekleab, 2005;Ismail A. et al., `2010;Midgley et al., 1998;Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990). In regards to supervisors" leadership styles, a Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) by Bass and Avolio (1995) was employed. This study derived six items on individualism versus collectivism and power distance culture dimensions (three items for each dimension) from Hofstede G. (2008) .Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to analyze the data being collected. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze demographic data while generic skills improvement were analyze using paired t-test analysis. Pearson correlation was used to analyze relationship between predictor factors and communication skill.
Step wise multiple regression was carried out in order to explore the significant predictor factors on communication skill improvement. Table 1 reports analysis of students" demographic profile for both phases of survey. In pre survey, a total of 2000 questionnaires were self-distributed but only 1,227 questionnaires were usable to analyze. Meanwhile a total of 485 usable questionnaires were collected in the post survey through online medium. The results obtained were analyzed as shown in Table 1.  Table 2 illustrates supervisors" profile who being assigned to supervise the trainees during industrial training period. This profile is classified as gender, ethnicity, working position and working experience. The ratio of male supervisor compared to female supervisor is one to one. In general, Malay supervisors constitute more than half of the sample, the next largest consist of Chinese supervisors, followed by Indian and others. In the respect of working position, the majority of supervisors hold position as middle management and lower management. However, supervisors who hold position as top management slightly less supervised the trainees as it constitutes the lowest percentage of sample. With regards to working experience, supervisors who served more than 9 years dominate the sample. This indicates that this group of supervisors were highly experienced with their own work. It also appears that supervisor with working experience less than 3 years and 3 to 6 years account for almost similar percentage of sample, followed by the lowest percentage of 7 to 9 years working experience group. The distribution of organisational profile was based on the respondents" industrial training venue or organisation where they attended the training. Table 3 depicts that this profile consists of types of sectors, types of companies and organisational size. Almost two third of the respondents attended training in the private sectors, while more than quarter choose public sector as their training placement. With respect of types of companies, more than half of the respondents attended their training in national companies as compared to multinational companies. In brief, almost half of the respondents attended industrial training in small organisation where the number of employees less than 50, as it appears the highest percentage (40.8%). Approximately, similar percentage was reported for those who attended industrial training in medium (28.5%) and large (30.7%) organisations.  Table 4 reports descriptive results of selected factors that influence students" communication skill improvement. Students" motivation is measured using two constructs, Intrinsic and Extrinsic. Table 4 illustrates that in total, students scored a mean of 5.52 and 5.50 in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation indicating that they highly agree with the both factors that motivate them to work during industrial training. Using score range introduced by Bass and Avolio (1995), the level of leadership style was categorised into high score (9 -12), moderate score (5 -8) and low score (0 -4). Based on the overall mean score, supervisor hold high level of laissez-faire leadership style as it constitutes the highest score range of 8.61, followed by transactional leadership style with the score range of 8.38. However, the transformational leadership style accounts score range of 7.70, indicating the moderate level. Lastly, organisational culture is measured using two constructs, Individualism versus collectivism and Power distance. The level of organisational culture is registered along a seven point of scale ranging from "Strongly disagree (1) to "Strongly agree" (7) involving 6 items. Therefore, a higher score demonstrates a tendency to agree with the items indicating low individualism (moving towards collectivism) and low power distance. Results in Table 4 show that the overall mean of Individualism versus collectivism construct is inclined to agree that they are in Collectivism dimension at high level of agreement. Similarly, in the Power distance construct, mean of 5.33 shows their high level of agreement in the low Power distance dimension.  In measuring the communication skill improvement, this study has conducted paired samples t-test analysis of sample means based on a seven point-scale (refer Table 5). Thus, higher mean score in post-survey than the presurvey indicates communication skill improvement (positive mean difference). In this study, communication skill is calculated by the average of the difference between pre-and post-training of all 13 communication skill items (mean post-training minus mean pre-training). The mean difference of this communication skill is also known as communication skill improvement which is self-perceived communication skill (pre-post). Table 5 shows students have benefited from undergone their industrial training as the results exhibit that overall mean was reported to increase from 4.68 to 4.83. In examining results in individual items, it was found that means increased significantly in most items, except for Items 7, 11 and 12. .000
A multiple regression analysis with stepwise method was used in determining the influences of selected factors on students" communication skill improvement. Since the multiple regressions analysis only analyzes variables with continuous data, this study then has recoded the categorical data (such as gender, ethnicity and field of study) into dichotomous variable or known as dummy variable.
As illustrated in Table 7, the correlation between dependent variable (students" communication skill) and four predictor factors is 0.43. It also suggests that the relationship between the four predictor factors and the dependent variable is significant as F (4, 458) = 25.412 at p<0.01.These four factors explained 17.4% variation in students" perception of their communication skill, which is acceptable for Social Science research (Gaur and Gaur, 2009). The regression coefficients (B) of four predictor factors are shown in Table 8. It shows that extrinsic motivation isthe most significant factor in affecting students" communication skill. It also shows that the change in the dependent variable, when there is a one-unit change in the predictor variable (Hairet, 2010). For example, by controlling the effects of low power distance culture, medium organisation and laissez-faire leadership, one unit increase in extrinsic motivation produces an increase of 0.162 in students" communication skill. There are two out of the four factors have negative sign indicating an inverse relationship with the dependent variable (students" communication skill). In other words, less supervision by laissez-faire leader will result in higher communication skill improvement. Additional explanation for dummy variable is needed where students who undergone their industrial training in medium organisation has less communication skill improvement than those in large organisation (reference category).  Based on the multiple regression analysis result, the following equation was formulated to predict the students" communication skill upon completion of their industrial training. Y = 1.478 + 0.162X1 + 0.088X2 -0.174X3 -0.038X4 where, Y = Communication skill improvement X1 = Motivation (extrinsic) X2 = Organisational culture (low power distance) X3 = Organisational size (reference_large) X4 = Supervisors" leadership style (laissez-faire) communication skill. Further analysis using multiple regressions also revealed that laissez-faire leadership influence in less improvement of students" communication skill. The negative influence is predictable as laissez-faire leadership exercise a "hands-off" approach (Bass and Avolio, 1994). In such situation, students might have less interaction with the supervisor as no feedback given to clarify their work. Consequently it causes low improvement in their communication skill as they are incompetent and inexperience employees. Findings of other correlation analyses show that there is a positive relationship between both organizational cultures (collectivism and low power distance) and students" communication skill. In addition, results of multiple regressions also exhibited that low power distance is one of the influencing factors on students" communication skill. In collectivism culture, individuals are expected to respect others" feelings; meanwhile in low power distance culture authority is equally distributed among members (Hofstede G., 1984). In both cultures, good relationships are built and open communication is emphasised; therefore students are encourage to express their opinions and thoughts (Pendergast, 1994). Although past studies (Ashkanasy, 2002) has indicated that Malaysia has a high power distance culture, a strong human orientation in the superior-subordinate relationship has lead superior (supervisor) to consider others" opinion while interacting (Kennedy, 1993(Kennedy, -2005.

Conclusions
From this study it was found that public university students in Malaysia had benefited from undergoing their industrial training, as proven to improve their communication skill. This improvement has being influenced by other factors such as motivation, culture, organizational size and supervisor"s leadership styles. Thus, it is important for higher learning institutions and students to select the best placement for industrial training. In fact, organizations should play their roles to instill good organizational culture as well as implement good leadership styles. By considering the factors that may influence on students" generic skills improvement, higher learning institutions and host organisations are able to administer matters pertaining the industrial training more effectively, and thus fulfil its objectives.This study contributes to the industrial training programmes mainly to public universities in Malaysia by examining students" communication skill improvement using two phases of data collection. The study also contributes some practical implications to industrial training stakeholders by knowing the effectiveness of industrial training programme in developing future human capital with excellent communication skill.