Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft Skills at English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft Skills at
English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to Faculty of Language Education as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
Department of English Education
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft Skills at
English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to Faculty of Language Education as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
Department of English Education
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
ii
iii
Statement of Authenticity
I am a student with the following identity
Name
: Siti Chariroh
NIM
: 20120540101
Program Study
: English Education Department
Faculty
: Faculty of Language Education
University
: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
I certify that the skripsi with the title “Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing
Students’ Soft Skills at English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”
is my own work. I am completely responsible for the content of this paper. Others’ opinion and
findings included in this skripsi are quoted in accordance with ethical standards.
Yogyakarta, 29 December 2016
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
iv
Dedication
This Skripsi is Dedicatited to My Family:
My beloved Parents
My beloved Husband
&
My beloved Brother
v
Acknowledgement
“In the name of ALLAH the most gracious and the most merciful”
This skripsi would not be done if I do not get the help from Allah SWT. So the first one
after finishing this skripsi, I just want to be thankful to Allah SWT that has given me easy of
finishing this skripsi, and the patience in doing this skripsi.
This skripsi also would not be complete without support from people around me. I thank
to my beloved husband, my beloved parents and my beloved brother and sister who always send
me prayers, and always give me motivation.
Then, I want to say thanks for my supervisor Mr. Gendroyono, S. Pd., M. Pd, who has
guided me in patiently until I complete my skripsi. Thank you so much for your time and your
knowledge.
I do not forget to Mr. Puthut A, S.Pd., M. Pd, and Miss Sri Sudarsi. S.S., M. InT as my
examiner who has provided the suggestions, correction and knowledge to me. Thank you so
much, Sir.
Moreover, thanks for all lecturers at EED of UMY who have taught me and given
knowledge, I am release without you all I am not to be as like this.
I thank to , Fauzi, Nia, Helda, Anggun, Nisa, Ana, Maril, Inka, Dhani, Amel, Fitriani,
Gunawan and Wakhid who always help me and support me during my study at Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Without you all I can not finish well in my study and this skripsi at
EED of UMY.
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I also thank to all my friends who always give me many experiences since I studied at
EED of UMY and thank you for everything that you give me. Especially celestial class. I will
always miss you friends.
vii
Table of Content
Cover………………………………………………………………………………………...i
Approval Sheet……………………………………………………………………………...ii
Statement of Authenticity………………………………………………………………….iii
Dedication …………………………………………………………………………………..iv
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………...v
Table of content……………………………………………………………………………..vii
List of Appendices…………………………………………………………………………...x
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………...xi
Chapter One: Introduction …………………………………………………………….......1
Background of the Research…………………………………………………………..1
Identification of the Problem………………………………………………………….4
Limitation of the Problem……………………………………………………………..5
Research Question……………………………………………………………………..6
Purposes of the Research………………………………………………………………6
Significances of the Research………………………………………………………….6
Outline of the research………………………………………………………………....7
Chapter Two: Literature Review …..…………………………………………………….....9
Definition of soft skills………………………………………………………………....9
Categories of soft skills………………………………………………………………..10
Assessing students’ soft skills…………………………………………………………12
The role of teacher………….……………………………………………………...…..13
Strategy ………………………………………………………………………………..15
Definition strategy …………………………………………………………………….15
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Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills…………………………………15
Strategies in assessing communication skill…...……………………………………….16
Strategies in assessing critical thinking skill……...…………………………………….16
Strategies in assessing creativity skill……………….………………………………….17
Strategies in assessing teamwork skill………………………………………………….17
Strategies in assessing responsibility skill……….……..………………………………18
Theoretical framework………………………………………………………………….18
Review of related study…………………………………………………………………19
Chapter Three: Methodology ………..………………………………………………………21
Resign Design…………………………………………………………………………21
Research Participant…………………………………………………………………..22
Research Setting……………………………………………………………………….23
Data Collection Method……………………………………………………………….23
Data Analysis………………………………………………………………………….24
Chapter Four: Finding and Discussion ..…………………………………………………….26
Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY……………………..26
Direct method used by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills..……………………..27
Finding 1: Using rubric as strategy to assess communication skill……………………..27
Finding 2: Using activities to assess students’ soft skills..………..……….…………....27
Finding 3: Doing observation to assess students soft skills…………....…………...…..38
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Problems faced by lecturer in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY…….……….…..40
Finding 1: Too many students at EED of UMY...………………………………..……..40
Finding 3: Inactive students……………………………………………………………..41
Finding 4: assessing students’ creativity…………………………………...…….……..42
Finding 5: Determining standard of students’ original work or authenticity .…...……..42
Finding 6: Processing before finishing the task…….…………………………...……...43
Finding 9: The challenge of scoring individual contribution …………………………...43
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Suggestion …………...……………………………………....45
References………………………………………………………………………………...……..49
APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………………….......55
x
List of Appendices
Appendix 1. Interview Guide…………………………………………………………...55
xi
Abstract
Soft skills, as well as hard skills, are the skills that must be possessed by
students of English Education Department (EED) Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta (UMY). Soft skills are considered as an important skill, since they can
give advantages for students in the future. Moreover, it became the other points
assessed by the lecturers at EED of UMY. Based on the curriculum EED of UMY
there are thirty-two of soft skills, but most of the lecturers assess five soft skills;
communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill and
responsibility skill. Every lecturer had strategies to assess soft skills and some of the
lecturers seem have problems to assess those soft skills. The purpose of this research
was to discover the strategies used by the lecturers to assess students’ soft skills and
the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
The qualitative research design adopted as the research methodology. It used
descriptive qualitative. Total of lecturers who became participants of this research
were four lecturers EED of UMY who had experiences in assessing students’ soft
skills and who have been teaching at EED of UMY for at least two years. The
researcher had chosen the participants of this research by using purposive sampling.
The research was conducted at EED of UMY. An interview was used to collect the
data of this research and the researcher used in depth interview. In analyzing the data,
member checking used by the researcher to get the validity of this research and the
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The researcher used coding which consists of open coding, selective coding,
and axial coding but this research focused in open coding.
As the result, the researcher found three strategies used by the lecturers to
assess soft skills, using rubrics, conduct activities such as presentation, group
discussion, classroom discussion, critical thinking project, consultation, group
project, a textbook making, and creating simple dictionary, group work, teamwork
outcome, self- discipline and punctuality in turning in the task with good result. The
last strategy is observation including direct class observation, individual observation,
and observation during presentation. In this research, there were six problems faced
by lecturers at EED of UMY in assessing students’ soft skills. They were too many
students at EED of UMY, inactive student, assessing students’ creativity, determining
the students’ original work or authenticity, processing before finishing the task, and
to easy the challenge of scoring individual contribution in group work. However, not
every participant had problems in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
Keywords: Soft skills, assessing students’ soft skills, strategies in assessing
students’ soft skills
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter elaborates background of the research, identification of the
problem, limitation of the in problem, research question, purposes of the research,
significances of the research, and outline of the research.
Background of the Research
Skills are very significant to support people's performances in today’s
workplace and any activities that they do. Indeed, people should have two kinds of
skills, namely hard skills and soft skills. Onabamiro, Onuka, Oyekanmi (2014) stated
that “Hard skills are the specific skills to a particular career field of job while soft
skills are skills and personal characters that are useful for performing any jobs ” (p.
109). For example, teachers should have both hard skills and soft skills. Teachers’
hard skill is their knowledge, and their soft skill is teaching or delivering the
knowledge.
Students nowadays learn soft skills and hard skills because both skills
are needed in job market. Soft skills and hard skills should be balanced since
both complement each other. In an educational field, students must possess
soft skills because the soft skills play an important role in developing
students’ personality. Rani (2010) maintained:
“soft skills are learned behavior that it needs training. Soft skills will enable
students with a strong conceptual and practical framework to build, develop
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and manage teams. Those soft skills play an important role in the
development of the students’ overall personality in enhancing their career
prospects” (p.1).
Sanyal (2013) added “soft skills are the occupational requirement of a job or
many other activities” (p. 421).
Students who have soft skills would possess good quality of life
because the soft skills make them ready for facing the challenges in the
workplace. According to Rani (2010, p. 3) “soft skills will help the students
increase their employability potential and face the challenges of the present
time.” Soft skills should be taught and trained in an academic field before
applied in daily life as Mai (2012) stated “students’ soft skills need to be
developed to get them ready for the workplace” (p. 44).
Meanwhile, all lecturers at English Education Department (EED) of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) assess students’ soft skills
because it is the regulation explained in a curriculum of the EED of UMY.
Based on the curriculum of the EED of UMY, soft skills can be categorized
into intrapersonal skill, extra personal skill, and interpersonal skill. The
lecturers make a lesson plan of a course and also include some aspects soft
skills in the lesson plan such as cooperative, committed, critical thinking,
respectful, creativity, innovative, confident, responsible, teamwork,
3
independent learning, communication, problem solving and logical argument.
The lecturers’ lesson plan explains competencies and goal that should
be achieved by students including the hard skills and soft skills related to the
course. Furthermore, the lesson plan also mentions that 20 percent of the score
is from the soft-skill assessment. It means that every student should have good
soft skills because they are assessed at the EED of UMY.
Based on the researcher’s experience, the lecturers said that assessing
soft skills of students is not easy because the great number of students and
different soft skills which have to be assessed. However, assessing students’
discipline is easy because the lecturers can assess this soft skill by seeing
documents such as a presence list showing whether or not the students ever
skip the class.
In the classroom activity, the lecturers had some difficulties to assess
students’ soft skills. It happened because too many students in classroom.
Consequently, the lecturers should assess all soft skills that students have such
as cooperative, committed, critical thinking, respectful, creativity, innovative,
confident, responsible, teamwork, independent learning, communication,
problem solving and logical argument. Therefore, it was difficult for the
lecturers to assess students’ soft skills in the great number of students.
Moreover, each subject course has different soft skills to assess. This is shown
4
in the lecturers’ lesson plan.
The challenge in assessing soft skills are supported some aspects such as
competency of teacher in assessing soft skills. Asuru and Ogidi (2013) cited in
Dorowuju and Onuka (2014) stated that “some of challenges of assessing soft skills
include teacher incompetency, poor knowledge of test construction and lack of
knowledge of how to properly assess soft skills.(p. 608 )
From those reasons, the researcher was interested in conducting a research on
lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills and the problems in assessing
students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
Identification of the Problem
Based on the issues that were explained in the background, the researcher
finds some issues. Firstly, the lecturers should have competence of understanding
their students’ soft skills. It was very important for the lecturers because it helped the
lecturers understand the weaknesses and strengths of the students. Lecturers who
grasped their students’ weaknesses and strengths can create good technique of
teaching and the harmonic relationship between the students and the lecturers.
Calfapietra (2000) as cited in T. Lee and T. Lee (2011) stated that “teacher must view
their students as individuals and recognize them through their personal strength and
weakness in learning” (p.141).
Secondly, the issue was the lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’
soft skills. Every lecturer has strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
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Lecturers assess students’ soft skills based on the soft skills mentioned in the
curriculum, namely intrapersonal skill, interpersonal skill, and extra personal
skill. Lecturer’s strategies are useful to identify students’ soft skills.
Lastly, the researcher identified problems faced by the lecturers in
assessing students’ soft skills. Based on the researcher’s experience, some of
lecturers got difficulties in assessing students’ soft skills. One of the
difficulties was that the lecturers should assess too many students.
Limitation of the Problem
Based on the identified issues, the researcher limited the problems. First, the
researcher wanted to explore lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY. There are some categories of soft skills, but the researcher focused
on five soft skills that the lecturers assessed. They are communication skill, critical
thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. The researcher
focused on the five soft skills because most of lecturers at the EED of UMY assess
those soft skills as written on their lesson plan.
Second, the researcher focused on the problems faced by the lecturers
in assessing students’ soft skills because some of lecturers got difficulties in
assessing soft skills of students. The researcher found lecturers’ in assessing
communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill,
and responsibility skill.
6
Research Question
In this case, the researcher conducted research to explore the lecturers’
strategies and problems in assessing students’ soft skills. Therefore, the
researcher formulated two research questions written as follows:
1.
What are lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of
UMY?
2.
What are the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY?
Purposes of the Research
1.
To explore lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of
UMY.
2.
To identify the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY.
Significances of the Research
The researcher mentioned several benefits of the research; they are:
For the researcher. This research makes the researcher gain new knowledge
of the variety of strategies that are usually used by the lecturers in assessing students’
soft skills. It is very useful for the researcher who wants to be a teacher in the future
since those strategies can be applied to assess soft skills of students when the
researcher becomes a teacher.
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For the students. This research helps students know the strategies to improve
their soft skills. This research also gives the students knowledge of lecturers’
strategies in assessing students’ soft skills and problems usually faced by the lecturers
in assessing students’ soft skills.
For lecturers. There are benefits that this research may give for the
lecturers, especially lecturers at the EED of UMY. This research gives some
references for the lecturers about strategies in assessing students’ soft skills
that can be applied in the classroom during teaching process or assessing
students’ soft skills. Therefore, lecturers may know each soft skill of students.
For the next researchers. This research can become a reference for
the next researchers, especially for students of the EED of UMY, who want to
conduct the research on the strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
Outline of the Research
This research consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction
of this research that explains background, identification of the problem,
limitation of the problem. Besides that, this chapter also provides research
questions, purposes of the research, and significances of the research.
Chapter two discusses some points related to the literature review. It
explores soft skills, assessing students’ soft skills, and lecturers’ strategies in
8
assessing students’ soft skills.
Chapter three focuses on the research methodology. There are six
points in chapter three, namely research design, research participants, research
setting, data collection method, technique of data collection, and data analysis.
Chapter four presents findings and discussion. The findings are
presented based on the data collected from interviews and link them to the
theories mentioned in chapter two.
Chapter five presents the conclusion and suggestion of this research.
The conclusion summarizes the whole research, while the suggestion of this
research is given to lecturers, students, the researcher, and the next researcher
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
This chapter discusses several points related to literature reviews to support
this research. This chapter explains the definition of soft skills, assessing students’
soft skills and strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
Soft Skills
Definition of soft skills. In this part, the researcher provides several
definitions of soft skills taken from various resources. According to Onabamiro, et al.
(2014, p.109), “soft skill is a sociological term relating to a person’s emotional
intelligence quotient (EIQ), the cluster of personality traits, social graces,
communication, language, personal habit, friendliness and optimism that characterize
relationship with other people.” Moreover, Majid, Liming, Tong, and Raihana (2012)
contended “soft skills refer to personalities, attributes, qualities, and people personal
behavior of individuals” (p. 1036). Rani (2010) also claimed:
Soft skills are the skill of learning, how to practice, how to play together,
when and where to use our manner, the development of social grace, how to
resolve conflict, how to express appreciation by learning, soft skills can lead
students to grow up better. (p. 4)
10
In addition, Dalaya, Ishaquddin, Ghadage, and Hatte (2015) described “soft skills are
people used to communicate, solve problems, and think creatively in contrast to hard
skills” (p. 1).
Categories of soft skills. There were some categories of soft skills.
According to Nealy (2005), soft skills include communication, listening, team of
problem solving, cross cultural relationship, and customer service. Furthermore, soft
skills are also dealing with communication skill, interpersonal skill, group dynamics,
team work, body language, etiquettes, selling skill, presentation skill, confidence
building (Rani, 2010).
Besides, Majid, et al. (2012) argued that soft skills include communication,
problem solving, self-motivation, decision making, and time management skill.
Sanyal (2013) added that soft skills comprise leadership, decision-making, conflict
resolution, negotiation, communication, creativity, and presentation skill. Schulz
(2008) also mentioned some categories of soft skills which are communication skill,
critical thinking, problem solving skill, creativity skill, teamwork capability,
negotiation skill, responsibility, time management, and self-management. In this
research, the researcher examined five categories of soft skills proposed by Schulz
(2008) which are communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill,
teamwork capability, and responsibility skill as soft skills. The five categories are soft
11
skills written on a lesson plan of lecturers of the EED of UMY, and the researcher
wanted to grasp how the lecturers assess those soft skills.
Communication skill. Communication skill is the way to interact with others.
Janasz, Dowd, and Schneider (2002) defined that “communication is a process in
which information flow from a source to receiver and back. We communicate
because we want something to happen or we want to satisfy a need” (p. 86).
Dharmajan, Pachigalla, Lanka (2012) added that “communication skill is a skill
where the message is transmitted in such a way that the receiver receives it in a way
the sender intended it to be” (p. 4).
Critical thinking skill. As suggested by Paul and Elder as cited in Scot (2009)
“critical thinking is solve a complex problem by rising vital question, gathering
relevant information, determining finding, and communicating effectively”(p. 40).
Meanwhile, Bernstein, Stewart, Penner, Roy, and Wickens (2000) stated that “critical
thinking is the process of evaluating propositions or hypotheses and making
judgments about them on the basis of well supported evidence” (p. 20).
Creativity. Creativity is about how one develops idea. According to Barbot,
Besancon, and Lubart (2011) stated that “creativity is the ability to produce
something which is both new or original and task or domain appropriate”. (p.125). In
addition, Janasz et al. (2002) suggested that is creativity is an new idea that produced
by someone. Another definition about creativity, it supported by Bernstein et al.
(2000) who claimed that “creativity is the ability to generate novel but viable or
12
workable solution to problem” (p. 201). Furthermore, Prucha, Walterava, and Mares
(1998) as cited Trnova (2014) said that “creativity is defined as mental ability based
on cognitive and motivational process where, however, an important role is played by
inspiration, imagination, and institution” (p. 55).
Teamwork capability. Teamwork is doing something together in a team.
According to Janasz, et al. (2002) teamwork is a “team of a formal group consisting
of people who work together intensively to achieve a common group goal. The
essence of teamwork is to create a product through collective effort of several
individuals” (p. 310). Another definition of teamwork was stated by Dolage and
Hearth (2013) that “teamwork encouragea member and facilitates cooperative, instills
a sense of pride, trust and group identify. It fosters commitment, team spirit and helps
the teams to achieve their goals (p. 25).
Responsibility. There are two definitions of responsibility provided in this
research. Firstly, based on Oxford dictionary (2010, p. 376) “responsibility is duty to
deal with or take care of” (p. 376). Secondly, according to Duangjan (2014, p. 80)
“responsibility is a basic important value of ethics and is a behavioral trait that should
be encourage in other to develop personal quality.”
Assessing Students’ Soft skills. Assessing students’ soft skills. Assessing
students’ soft skills is important to help the lecturers to develop the students’ skills
13
and find out the appropriate strategies in teaching and assessing the soft skills in the
classroom. Dorowoju and Onuka (2014) stated:
“assessment of soft skills is as important has hard skills and one of the
challenges of soft skills assessment in school has to do with determining with
appropriate method for assessing soft skills. It becomes imperative to examine the
appropriate methods for assessing soft skills” (p. 608).
The Roles of a Teacher or Lecturer
A teacher is not only someone who teaches students in front of class, but also
the one who has some roles in teaching Harmer (2002) mentioned that a teacher can
possess several roles, namely as a controller, organizer, assessor, prompter,
participant, resource, tutor, and observer.
Teachers as controllers. When acting as controllers, teachers are responsible
for the class and the class or group activities. They have to “take the role, tell students
things, organize drills, read aloud, and various other ways exemplify the quality
teacher-fronted classroom” (Harmer, 2002, p. 58).
Teachers as organizers. As organizers, teachers manage students to
undertake various activities. “This often involves giving the students’ information,
telling them how they are going to do the activity, putting them in to pair or group,
and finally closing things down when it is time to stop” (Harmer, 2002, p. 58)
14
Teachers as assessors. Students may except that their teacher will tell them
whether or not they do the things well so that teachers should have a role as assessors.
Assessing the students’ performance can be carried out through “offering feedback
and correction, and grading students in various ways” (Harmer, 2002, p. 59)
Teachers as prompters. Another role of teachers is as prompters. For
instance, “in a role-play activity, students lose the thread of what is going on or they
lost of word. They may not be quite sure how to proceed. Teachers should adopt
some kind of a prompting role” (Harmer, 2002, p. 60)
Teachers as participants. During a class activity, teachers may do not get
engaged in the activity and let students do it by themselves. The teachers’
involvements is only intervening later to offer feedback and/or correct mistakes”
(Harmer, 2002, p. 60). Teachers may get involved in the activity as participants
instead of teachers.
Teachers as resources. Teachers act as resources when students “ask how to
say or write something or word or phrase means. Students might want to know
information in the middle to ask information about where to look for something – a
book or a web site for example” (Harmer, 2002, p. 61).
Teachers as tutors. When acting as tutors, teachers provide guidance for
students to do an activity. Teachers can be tutors “when students are working on
15
longer project, such as pieces of writing or preparations for a talk or debate” (Harmer,
2002, p. 62). However, the teachers should be aware that they may not intervene too
much and too little. They can also “combine the roles of prompters and resources
when acting as tutors” (Harmer, 2002, p. 62).
Teacher as observer. “Teacher observes what students do (especially in oral
communication activities) so that the teacher can be useful for group and individual
feedback” (Harmer, 2002, p. 62 ).
Strategy
Strategy is the methods of approaching a problem or task modes of operation
for achieving a particular end, planed designs for controlling, and manipulating
certain information (Brown, 2007, p. 260). In this research, the researcher used the
definition of strategies based on oxford dictionary (2010) that a “strategy is a plan
intended to achieve a particular purpose” (p. 439). Besides, Herrell and Jordan
(2004:5) as cited in Thomson (2012) “strategies was define as the approaches that can
be used across curricular areas to support the learning of students”(p. 4).
Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft skills.
Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft skills. Lecturers might have various
had strategies to assess their students’ soft skills. As suggested by Dorowuju et al.
(2014) there are methods that could be used to assess soft skills, as stated below.
“direct method, indirect method, and combination of direct and indirect
method assessment. Direct method in assessing soft skills included oral
16
questions, projects, standardized test, oral quizzes or examination, teacher
made tests, and practical test. Indirect method included classroom observation,
interview, questionnaires, and checklist. For combination direct and indirect
method involve the method into two groups direct and indirect” (p. 608).
Another definition of direct and indirect methods of assessment that can be used to
assess students’ soft skills is based on project LEARN SLO assessment handbook
(2006) that:
“direct assessment methods require students to demonstrated knowledge and
skills and provided data that measure achievement of expected outcomes.
Students have to actively do something observable and measurable using the
knowledge and skills. Direct method assessment involved standardized test,
embedded questions on assignment, student presentation, and scoring rubric.
Indirect assessment method require that faculty actual student skills and
values from sources other than observable, direct evidence. Example of
indirect method; survey “(p.1-3).
Strategies in assessing students’ communication skill. Lecturers have some
strategies to assess communication skill of students through a speaking activity in
long life teaching process. According to Issaias and Isa (2013, p. 1) “various
assessment methods were used to promote communication skill; discussion forum
and presentation.” Moreover, surveys also can be used to assess communication skill
as suggested by Johnston, Fidelie, Robinson, Killion, and Behren (2012) that survey
17
also can be used to assess communication skill. As suggested by Johnston, Fidelie,
Robinson, Killion, Behren (2012) checklist, survey, interview and essay exam are all
commonly method to assess communication skill.
Strategies in assessing students’ critical thinking skill. There are some
strategies that can be used by the lecturer to assess students’ critical thinking. As
suggested by Thomas (2011) method to assess critical thinking can be done through
evaluation and analysis. Next is analysis of synthesis of an arguments. For example,
by putting students into small groups discussion. Another proposed by Bailin et al
(1999) as cited in Lai (2011) explained that “critical thinking involves the ability to
respond constructively to others during group discussion, which implies interacting in
pro-social ways by encouraging and respecting the contributions of others”(p. 34).
Strategies in assessing students’ creativity. The lecturers had strategy to
assess creativity skill of students during process learning. Assessing creativity is
measure of students’ creativity. As suggested by Sternberg & Grigorenko 2007,
Sternberg, Jarvin & Grikorenko 2009, 2011, Sternberg & Lubart 1995b; Sternberg &
William, 1996 as cited in Sternberg (2012) explained that “assessing creativity means
evaluating students as they create, invent, discover, imagine if…., and predict” (p. 8).
From those activities creativity could be assessed by the lecturers.
Strategies in assessing students’ teamwork skill. A strategy that lecturers can
use to in assess students’ teamwork is team learning. Hughes and Jones (2011) stated:
18
one possible approach to assess team work is through written teamwork test
and comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness (CATME) that includes
contributing to the team work, interacting to the team, expecting quality (expected the
team to success), having relevant knowledge skill (p.57& 59).
Lecturers’ strategy in assessing students’ responsibility. The method that
the lecturers used to assess students’ responsibility skill is conscientious in task
because when students have high responsibility they always punctuality. Lewis
(2001) stated that “in particular, the role classroom discipline in promoting students
responsibility is examined. Duangjan (2014) stated that “the students lack their
responsibility toward their studies, as is seen by their poor class attendance, lack
responsibility towards their institution, as made clear by their participants and
teamwork skill” (p. 80).
Theoretical Framework
In this section, the researcher presents some theories related to this research.
According to Onabamiro, et al. (2014, p. 109) “soft skill is a sociological term
relating to a person’s emotional intelligence quotient (EIQ), the cluster of personality
traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habit, friendliness and
optimism that characterize relationship with other people.” Meanwhile, Majid (2012)
said “soft skills refer to personalities, attributes, qualities, and people personal
behavior of individuals” (p. 1036).
19
There are many categories of soft skills. However, this research only focuses
on five soft skills suggested by Schulz (2008), namely communication skill, critical
thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill.
The lecturers have to know everything related to the class including their
students’ soft skills. In this research, the researcher analyzed lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills in terms of communication skill, critical thinking skill,
creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. The lecturers have to know
every soft skill that the students have. Therefore, the lecturers use some strategies to
assess those soft skills to help the lecturers understand well the ability of students.
In assessing five soft skills that discussed in this research, the strategy that
could be used by the lecturers to assess communication skill was discussion forum
and presentation. In addition, strategies in assessing students’ critical thinking was
analyzing the arguments by putting students into small groups. Another strategy that
could be used by the lecturer to assess creativity is evaluating students as they create,
invent, discover, imagine if…., and predict. Then for strategies to assess team work
written is teamwork test and comprehensive assessment of team member
effectiveness (CATME) that includes contributing to the team work, interacting to the
team, expecting quality (expected the team to success). The last was the strategy to
assess responsibility, through self -discipline and punctuality in submitting the task.
20
Review of Related Studies
The researcher noticed that study of Onabamiro, et al. (2014) entitled
“Teachers’ Perception of Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills in Secondary School”
has the same characteristics as this research. . The objective of this study was to grasp
the ability of teachers in assessing of soft skills. The study used survey to collect the
data because the researchers attempted to get the data of teachers’ perception on
teaching and assessing soft skills in secondary school setting in Nigeria. The
population of this study was the teachers, and the samples of this study were 120
teachers from four schools. This study used random sampling.
This study reported that soft skills are teachable in secondary school. 65.4% to
89.2% were valid to make soft skills teachable in secondary school while 10.8% to
34.6% of them perceived these skills are not teachable. The findings implied that
majority of teachers believed that soft skills are teachable in Nigeria secondary
school, and can be taught in several ways.
21
Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology that was used in this research.
This chapter covers research design, research participants, research setting, data
collection, and data analysis.
Research Design
This research was conducted to find out the lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills. Based on the research purposes, this research used
qualitative research design focusing on describing statements from participants.
Creswell (2011) defined that “qualitative research is an approach for exploring
and understanding the meaning individual or group describe to a social or human
problem” (p. 4). Based on the explanation, qualitative research is a research
design employed to describe people’s opinions or arguments.
The researcher used qualitative research method to explore people’s
experience. Hancock, Ockleford, and Windrige (2009) stated that qualitative
research method is used if the research questions are formulated to explore
people’s experience, their views. Therefore, qualitative research design is
appropriate for this research investigating the lecturers’ strategies in assessing
students’ soft skills at the English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.
22
The researcher used descriptive qualitative method because the researcher
obtained the data based on the experience of the participants. Grant (2007) stated
“descriptive qualitative method is one method that seeks to present the voice of
the particular population under study” (p.16). Using descriptive qualitative
research helped the researcher to interpret the data of this research.
Research Participant
The participants of this research were four lecturers at the English
Education Department (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY).
The researcher used purposive sampling. As mentioned by Creswell (2012),
“purposive sampling can identify the sampling strategy and be able to define it
use. Purposive qualitative sampling is selecting people or sites who can best help
us understand phenomena of research” (p. 206).
The researcher selected the participants who met some criteria. First, the
participants were lecturers at the EED of UMY who have been teaching and
assessing students’ soft skills for at least two years. Additionally, they have been
teaching English more than three classes at the EED of UMY. Second, the
participants were familiar with assessing students’ soft skills and they have
experience of assessing students’ soft skills.
The researcher believed that the lecturers at the EED of UMY could
provide information for this research since they had experience in assessing
students’ soft skills. . However, the researcher only selected four lecturers as the
research participants and interviewed them. as suggested by Patton (2002, p. 244)
23
“there are no rules for sample size in qualitative inquiry. Sample what you want to
know, the purpose of the inquiry, what a stake, what be useful, what credibility,
and what can be done with available time and resources.”
Research Setting
This research was conducted at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (EED of UMY). The researcher had
some reasons to choose the EED of UMY as the research setting. First, the
lecturers at the EED of UMY assess students’ soft skills, and promote soft skills
to the students. Students of the EED of UMY are assessed form the first to the last
semester. The soft skills are assessed at every class in every meeting at. Second,
the researcher is the student of the EED of UMY. Therefore, she understands the
issue and what has been happening at the EED of UMY. Last, the researcher
knows all of the lecturers so that she could gather the data easily.
Data collection method
The researcher conducted interviews to collect the data. According to
Creswell (2014), in qualitative interviews, the researcher could conduct
interviews, with participants. There were some steps of conducting interviews.
First, the participants were chosen by the researcher based on the aforementioned
criteria. The researcher contacted the lecturers of the EED of UMY and asked
them to become the participants of this research. After they agreed to be the
research participants, the researcher made an appointment with the participants by
WhatsApp to conduct interview.
24
In the next time, the researcher met with participants to start the interview
in different day each participant. Before the interview, the researcher firstly
introduced herself to the participants, explained the aim of the interview, and
thanked the participants for their willingness to provide information for this
research.
The researcher used interviews because she could obtain the data based on
lecturers’ experience related to the strategies and the problems in assessing
students’ soft skills. The researcher interviewed four lecturers by using in-depth
interviews as the instrument of this research.
The questions of the interviews focused on lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills and problems faced by the lecturers in assessing
students’ soft skills. Each interview took 10 – 20 minutes. The interview was
conducted in the Indonesia language to avoid misunderstanding between the
interviewer and the participants. The researcher also used cell phone to record the
conversation during the interview so that the data could easily be analyzed.
Creswell (2014) stated that “the researcher record information from interviews by
making audiotaping” (p. 194). Then, the researcher transcribed the recorded data
into written data.
Data Analysis
There were some steps of data analysis, namely member checking, coding,
reporting the findings, interpreting and summarizing the data. After transcribing
the data, the researcher did member checking by returning the transcribed data to
25
the participants so that they can check the validity and the accuracy of the
transcription. Creswell (2012) stated that, in member checking process, the
researcher shows the data and asked them to check the accuracy. Member
checking is an important aspect to deal with the issue of the validity. In member
checking, the participants agreed with the transcription. The next step was coding.
Rossman and Rallis (2012) as cited in Creswell (2014) said that “coding is
process of organizing the data by bracketing chunk (or text or image segment) and
writing a word representing a category in the margins” (p. 197-197). There three
steps of coding; open coding, axial coding, selective coding but in this research
the researcher only used open coding because it was clear.
The first coding was open coding. According to Bohm (2004, p. 271), “it
is advisable to analyze single short textual passages (line by line). Subsequently,
larger paragraphs or even whole texts may be coded in order to avoid simple
paraphrasing.”
The last step of data analysis was data reporting. After the researcher did
all of the steps, she analyzed and described the data to find the results. The
findings of this study were discussed on the next chapter that the strategies and the
problems in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of UMY were reported
26
Chapter Four
Finding and Discussion
This chapter provides two major sections of the research, which are the
presentation of the research finding and discussion. The findings and discussion
answer the two research questions and achieve the purposes of this research to
find out lecturers’ strategies and problems in assessing students’ soft skills at the
EED of UMY.
Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY
Based on the interviews, the researcher obtained some information from
the participants related to the research questions. The researcher found some
strategies which the lecturers of the EED of UMY used in assessing students’ soft
skills in terms of communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill,
teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. She found out that there were three
strategies used by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills. The first strategy
was direct methods including using rubric. The second strategy was combination
of direct and indirect methods using activities such as presentation, group
discussion, classroom discussion, critical thinking projects, consultation, making a
textbook, creating a simple dictionary, group projects, group work, teamwork
outcomes, self–discipline, and assignments. The last strategy was indirect
methods including using observation such as individual observation, direct class
observation, and observation during presentation).
27
Direct method used by lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills. The
lecturers at the EED of UMY used rubrics as a strategy to assess students’ soft
skills.
Finding 1: Using rubric as strategy to assess students’ soft skills. The
data showed that using rubric was the strategy to assess communication skill.
Participant two and four explained that assessing students’ communication skill
could use rubrics. Participant two stated, “To assess communication skill in the
classroom, we had a rubric to assess it. For example, to assess interpersonal skill,
we assess how students could communicate, be empathetic, and do teamwork”
(P2.1). Besides, participant four said that rubric could be a strategy to assess soft
skills, especially communication skill. Participant four said, “At the EED, soft
skills are assessed 20 percent. The soft skills are divided into four soft skills that
one of them is communication skill assessed using a rubric” (P4.1).
Based on the statements of two participants, rubrics can be used as a
strategy to assess students’ communication skill, especially communication skill.
It is in line with a project of LEARN SLO assessment handbook (2006)
explaining that direct method assessment includes a scoring rubric.
Combination direct and indirect method used by the lecturers in
assessing students’ soft skills.
Finding 2: Using activities as strategy to assess students’ soft skills.
There were some activities organized by the lecturers to assess five soft skills,
28
namely communication skill, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and
responsibility. The activities used to assess those soft skills were presentation,
critical thinking project, making a textbook, creating a simple d
English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to Faculty of Language Education as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
Department of English Education
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft Skills at
English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
A Skripsi
Submitted to Faculty of Language Education as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan
By:
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
Department of English Education
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
ii
iii
Statement of Authenticity
I am a student with the following identity
Name
: Siti Chariroh
NIM
: 20120540101
Program Study
: English Education Department
Faculty
: Faculty of Language Education
University
: Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
I certify that the skripsi with the title “Exploring Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing
Students’ Soft Skills at English Education Department Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”
is my own work. I am completely responsible for the content of this paper. Others’ opinion and
findings included in this skripsi are quoted in accordance with ethical standards.
Yogyakarta, 29 December 2016
Siti Chariroh
20120540101
iv
Dedication
This Skripsi is Dedicatited to My Family:
My beloved Parents
My beloved Husband
&
My beloved Brother
v
Acknowledgement
“In the name of ALLAH the most gracious and the most merciful”
This skripsi would not be done if I do not get the help from Allah SWT. So the first one
after finishing this skripsi, I just want to be thankful to Allah SWT that has given me easy of
finishing this skripsi, and the patience in doing this skripsi.
This skripsi also would not be complete without support from people around me. I thank
to my beloved husband, my beloved parents and my beloved brother and sister who always send
me prayers, and always give me motivation.
Then, I want to say thanks for my supervisor Mr. Gendroyono, S. Pd., M. Pd, who has
guided me in patiently until I complete my skripsi. Thank you so much for your time and your
knowledge.
I do not forget to Mr. Puthut A, S.Pd., M. Pd, and Miss Sri Sudarsi. S.S., M. InT as my
examiner who has provided the suggestions, correction and knowledge to me. Thank you so
much, Sir.
Moreover, thanks for all lecturers at EED of UMY who have taught me and given
knowledge, I am release without you all I am not to be as like this.
I thank to , Fauzi, Nia, Helda, Anggun, Nisa, Ana, Maril, Inka, Dhani, Amel, Fitriani,
Gunawan and Wakhid who always help me and support me during my study at Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. Without you all I can not finish well in my study and this skripsi at
EED of UMY.
vi
I also thank to all my friends who always give me many experiences since I studied at
EED of UMY and thank you for everything that you give me. Especially celestial class. I will
always miss you friends.
vii
Table of Content
Cover………………………………………………………………………………………...i
Approval Sheet……………………………………………………………………………...ii
Statement of Authenticity………………………………………………………………….iii
Dedication …………………………………………………………………………………..iv
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………………………...v
Table of content……………………………………………………………………………..vii
List of Appendices…………………………………………………………………………...x
Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………...xi
Chapter One: Introduction …………………………………………………………….......1
Background of the Research…………………………………………………………..1
Identification of the Problem………………………………………………………….4
Limitation of the Problem……………………………………………………………..5
Research Question……………………………………………………………………..6
Purposes of the Research………………………………………………………………6
Significances of the Research………………………………………………………….6
Outline of the research………………………………………………………………....7
Chapter Two: Literature Review …..…………………………………………………….....9
Definition of soft skills………………………………………………………………....9
Categories of soft skills………………………………………………………………..10
Assessing students’ soft skills…………………………………………………………12
The role of teacher………….……………………………………………………...…..13
Strategy ………………………………………………………………………………..15
Definition strategy …………………………………………………………………….15
viii
Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills…………………………………15
Strategies in assessing communication skill…...……………………………………….16
Strategies in assessing critical thinking skill……...…………………………………….16
Strategies in assessing creativity skill……………….………………………………….17
Strategies in assessing teamwork skill………………………………………………….17
Strategies in assessing responsibility skill……….……..………………………………18
Theoretical framework………………………………………………………………….18
Review of related study…………………………………………………………………19
Chapter Three: Methodology ………..………………………………………………………21
Resign Design…………………………………………………………………………21
Research Participant…………………………………………………………………..22
Research Setting……………………………………………………………………….23
Data Collection Method……………………………………………………………….23
Data Analysis………………………………………………………………………….24
Chapter Four: Finding and Discussion ..…………………………………………………….26
Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY……………………..26
Direct method used by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills..……………………..27
Finding 1: Using rubric as strategy to assess communication skill……………………..27
Finding 2: Using activities to assess students’ soft skills..………..……….…………....27
Finding 3: Doing observation to assess students soft skills…………....…………...…..38
ix
Problems faced by lecturer in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY…….……….…..40
Finding 1: Too many students at EED of UMY...………………………………..……..40
Finding 3: Inactive students……………………………………………………………..41
Finding 4: assessing students’ creativity…………………………………...…….……..42
Finding 5: Determining standard of students’ original work or authenticity .…...……..42
Finding 6: Processing before finishing the task…….…………………………...……...43
Finding 9: The challenge of scoring individual contribution …………………………...43
Chapter Five: Conclusion and Suggestion …………...……………………………………....45
References………………………………………………………………………………...……..49
APPENDIX………………………………………………………………………………….......55
x
List of Appendices
Appendix 1. Interview Guide…………………………………………………………...55
xi
Abstract
Soft skills, as well as hard skills, are the skills that must be possessed by
students of English Education Department (EED) Universitas Muhammadiyah
Yogyakarta (UMY). Soft skills are considered as an important skill, since they can
give advantages for students in the future. Moreover, it became the other points
assessed by the lecturers at EED of UMY. Based on the curriculum EED of UMY
there are thirty-two of soft skills, but most of the lecturers assess five soft skills;
communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill and
responsibility skill. Every lecturer had strategies to assess soft skills and some of the
lecturers seem have problems to assess those soft skills. The purpose of this research
was to discover the strategies used by the lecturers to assess students’ soft skills and
the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
The qualitative research design adopted as the research methodology. It used
descriptive qualitative. Total of lecturers who became participants of this research
were four lecturers EED of UMY who had experiences in assessing students’ soft
skills and who have been teaching at EED of UMY for at least two years. The
researcher had chosen the participants of this research by using purposive sampling.
The research was conducted at EED of UMY. An interview was used to collect the
data of this research and the researcher used in depth interview. In analyzing the data,
member checking used by the researcher to get the validity of this research and the
xii
The researcher used coding which consists of open coding, selective coding,
and axial coding but this research focused in open coding.
As the result, the researcher found three strategies used by the lecturers to
assess soft skills, using rubrics, conduct activities such as presentation, group
discussion, classroom discussion, critical thinking project, consultation, group
project, a textbook making, and creating simple dictionary, group work, teamwork
outcome, self- discipline and punctuality in turning in the task with good result. The
last strategy is observation including direct class observation, individual observation,
and observation during presentation. In this research, there were six problems faced
by lecturers at EED of UMY in assessing students’ soft skills. They were too many
students at EED of UMY, inactive student, assessing students’ creativity, determining
the students’ original work or authenticity, processing before finishing the task, and
to easy the challenge of scoring individual contribution in group work. However, not
every participant had problems in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
Keywords: Soft skills, assessing students’ soft skills, strategies in assessing
students’ soft skills
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This chapter elaborates background of the research, identification of the
problem, limitation of the in problem, research question, purposes of the research,
significances of the research, and outline of the research.
Background of the Research
Skills are very significant to support people's performances in today’s
workplace and any activities that they do. Indeed, people should have two kinds of
skills, namely hard skills and soft skills. Onabamiro, Onuka, Oyekanmi (2014) stated
that “Hard skills are the specific skills to a particular career field of job while soft
skills are skills and personal characters that are useful for performing any jobs ” (p.
109). For example, teachers should have both hard skills and soft skills. Teachers’
hard skill is their knowledge, and their soft skill is teaching or delivering the
knowledge.
Students nowadays learn soft skills and hard skills because both skills
are needed in job market. Soft skills and hard skills should be balanced since
both complement each other. In an educational field, students must possess
soft skills because the soft skills play an important role in developing
students’ personality. Rani (2010) maintained:
“soft skills are learned behavior that it needs training. Soft skills will enable
students with a strong conceptual and practical framework to build, develop
2
and manage teams. Those soft skills play an important role in the
development of the students’ overall personality in enhancing their career
prospects” (p.1).
Sanyal (2013) added “soft skills are the occupational requirement of a job or
many other activities” (p. 421).
Students who have soft skills would possess good quality of life
because the soft skills make them ready for facing the challenges in the
workplace. According to Rani (2010, p. 3) “soft skills will help the students
increase their employability potential and face the challenges of the present
time.” Soft skills should be taught and trained in an academic field before
applied in daily life as Mai (2012) stated “students’ soft skills need to be
developed to get them ready for the workplace” (p. 44).
Meanwhile, all lecturers at English Education Department (EED) of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) assess students’ soft skills
because it is the regulation explained in a curriculum of the EED of UMY.
Based on the curriculum of the EED of UMY, soft skills can be categorized
into intrapersonal skill, extra personal skill, and interpersonal skill. The
lecturers make a lesson plan of a course and also include some aspects soft
skills in the lesson plan such as cooperative, committed, critical thinking,
respectful, creativity, innovative, confident, responsible, teamwork,
3
independent learning, communication, problem solving and logical argument.
The lecturers’ lesson plan explains competencies and goal that should
be achieved by students including the hard skills and soft skills related to the
course. Furthermore, the lesson plan also mentions that 20 percent of the score
is from the soft-skill assessment. It means that every student should have good
soft skills because they are assessed at the EED of UMY.
Based on the researcher’s experience, the lecturers said that assessing
soft skills of students is not easy because the great number of students and
different soft skills which have to be assessed. However, assessing students’
discipline is easy because the lecturers can assess this soft skill by seeing
documents such as a presence list showing whether or not the students ever
skip the class.
In the classroom activity, the lecturers had some difficulties to assess
students’ soft skills. It happened because too many students in classroom.
Consequently, the lecturers should assess all soft skills that students have such
as cooperative, committed, critical thinking, respectful, creativity, innovative,
confident, responsible, teamwork, independent learning, communication,
problem solving and logical argument. Therefore, it was difficult for the
lecturers to assess students’ soft skills in the great number of students.
Moreover, each subject course has different soft skills to assess. This is shown
4
in the lecturers’ lesson plan.
The challenge in assessing soft skills are supported some aspects such as
competency of teacher in assessing soft skills. Asuru and Ogidi (2013) cited in
Dorowuju and Onuka (2014) stated that “some of challenges of assessing soft skills
include teacher incompetency, poor knowledge of test construction and lack of
knowledge of how to properly assess soft skills.(p. 608 )
From those reasons, the researcher was interested in conducting a research on
lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills and the problems in assessing
students’ soft skills at EED of UMY.
Identification of the Problem
Based on the issues that were explained in the background, the researcher
finds some issues. Firstly, the lecturers should have competence of understanding
their students’ soft skills. It was very important for the lecturers because it helped the
lecturers understand the weaknesses and strengths of the students. Lecturers who
grasped their students’ weaknesses and strengths can create good technique of
teaching and the harmonic relationship between the students and the lecturers.
Calfapietra (2000) as cited in T. Lee and T. Lee (2011) stated that “teacher must view
their students as individuals and recognize them through their personal strength and
weakness in learning” (p.141).
Secondly, the issue was the lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’
soft skills. Every lecturer has strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
5
Lecturers assess students’ soft skills based on the soft skills mentioned in the
curriculum, namely intrapersonal skill, interpersonal skill, and extra personal
skill. Lecturer’s strategies are useful to identify students’ soft skills.
Lastly, the researcher identified problems faced by the lecturers in
assessing students’ soft skills. Based on the researcher’s experience, some of
lecturers got difficulties in assessing students’ soft skills. One of the
difficulties was that the lecturers should assess too many students.
Limitation of the Problem
Based on the identified issues, the researcher limited the problems. First, the
researcher wanted to explore lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY. There are some categories of soft skills, but the researcher focused
on five soft skills that the lecturers assessed. They are communication skill, critical
thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. The researcher
focused on the five soft skills because most of lecturers at the EED of UMY assess
those soft skills as written on their lesson plan.
Second, the researcher focused on the problems faced by the lecturers
in assessing students’ soft skills because some of lecturers got difficulties in
assessing soft skills of students. The researcher found lecturers’ in assessing
communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill,
and responsibility skill.
6
Research Question
In this case, the researcher conducted research to explore the lecturers’
strategies and problems in assessing students’ soft skills. Therefore, the
researcher formulated two research questions written as follows:
1.
What are lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of
UMY?
2.
What are the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY?
Purposes of the Research
1.
To explore lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of
UMY.
2.
To identify the problems faced by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills at
the EED of UMY.
Significances of the Research
The researcher mentioned several benefits of the research; they are:
For the researcher. This research makes the researcher gain new knowledge
of the variety of strategies that are usually used by the lecturers in assessing students’
soft skills. It is very useful for the researcher who wants to be a teacher in the future
since those strategies can be applied to assess soft skills of students when the
researcher becomes a teacher.
7
For the students. This research helps students know the strategies to improve
their soft skills. This research also gives the students knowledge of lecturers’
strategies in assessing students’ soft skills and problems usually faced by the lecturers
in assessing students’ soft skills.
For lecturers. There are benefits that this research may give for the
lecturers, especially lecturers at the EED of UMY. This research gives some
references for the lecturers about strategies in assessing students’ soft skills
that can be applied in the classroom during teaching process or assessing
students’ soft skills. Therefore, lecturers may know each soft skill of students.
For the next researchers. This research can become a reference for
the next researchers, especially for students of the EED of UMY, who want to
conduct the research on the strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
Outline of the Research
This research consists of five chapters. Chapter one is an introduction
of this research that explains background, identification of the problem,
limitation of the problem. Besides that, this chapter also provides research
questions, purposes of the research, and significances of the research.
Chapter two discusses some points related to the literature review. It
explores soft skills, assessing students’ soft skills, and lecturers’ strategies in
8
assessing students’ soft skills.
Chapter three focuses on the research methodology. There are six
points in chapter three, namely research design, research participants, research
setting, data collection method, technique of data collection, and data analysis.
Chapter four presents findings and discussion. The findings are
presented based on the data collected from interviews and link them to the
theories mentioned in chapter two.
Chapter five presents the conclusion and suggestion of this research.
The conclusion summarizes the whole research, while the suggestion of this
research is given to lecturers, students, the researcher, and the next researcher
9
Chapter Two
Literature Review
This chapter discusses several points related to literature reviews to support
this research. This chapter explains the definition of soft skills, assessing students’
soft skills and strategies in assessing students’ soft skills.
Soft Skills
Definition of soft skills. In this part, the researcher provides several
definitions of soft skills taken from various resources. According to Onabamiro, et al.
(2014, p.109), “soft skill is a sociological term relating to a person’s emotional
intelligence quotient (EIQ), the cluster of personality traits, social graces,
communication, language, personal habit, friendliness and optimism that characterize
relationship with other people.” Moreover, Majid, Liming, Tong, and Raihana (2012)
contended “soft skills refer to personalities, attributes, qualities, and people personal
behavior of individuals” (p. 1036). Rani (2010) also claimed:
Soft skills are the skill of learning, how to practice, how to play together,
when and where to use our manner, the development of social grace, how to
resolve conflict, how to express appreciation by learning, soft skills can lead
students to grow up better. (p. 4)
10
In addition, Dalaya, Ishaquddin, Ghadage, and Hatte (2015) described “soft skills are
people used to communicate, solve problems, and think creatively in contrast to hard
skills” (p. 1).
Categories of soft skills. There were some categories of soft skills.
According to Nealy (2005), soft skills include communication, listening, team of
problem solving, cross cultural relationship, and customer service. Furthermore, soft
skills are also dealing with communication skill, interpersonal skill, group dynamics,
team work, body language, etiquettes, selling skill, presentation skill, confidence
building (Rani, 2010).
Besides, Majid, et al. (2012) argued that soft skills include communication,
problem solving, self-motivation, decision making, and time management skill.
Sanyal (2013) added that soft skills comprise leadership, decision-making, conflict
resolution, negotiation, communication, creativity, and presentation skill. Schulz
(2008) also mentioned some categories of soft skills which are communication skill,
critical thinking, problem solving skill, creativity skill, teamwork capability,
negotiation skill, responsibility, time management, and self-management. In this
research, the researcher examined five categories of soft skills proposed by Schulz
(2008) which are communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill,
teamwork capability, and responsibility skill as soft skills. The five categories are soft
11
skills written on a lesson plan of lecturers of the EED of UMY, and the researcher
wanted to grasp how the lecturers assess those soft skills.
Communication skill. Communication skill is the way to interact with others.
Janasz, Dowd, and Schneider (2002) defined that “communication is a process in
which information flow from a source to receiver and back. We communicate
because we want something to happen or we want to satisfy a need” (p. 86).
Dharmajan, Pachigalla, Lanka (2012) added that “communication skill is a skill
where the message is transmitted in such a way that the receiver receives it in a way
the sender intended it to be” (p. 4).
Critical thinking skill. As suggested by Paul and Elder as cited in Scot (2009)
“critical thinking is solve a complex problem by rising vital question, gathering
relevant information, determining finding, and communicating effectively”(p. 40).
Meanwhile, Bernstein, Stewart, Penner, Roy, and Wickens (2000) stated that “critical
thinking is the process of evaluating propositions or hypotheses and making
judgments about them on the basis of well supported evidence” (p. 20).
Creativity. Creativity is about how one develops idea. According to Barbot,
Besancon, and Lubart (2011) stated that “creativity is the ability to produce
something which is both new or original and task or domain appropriate”. (p.125). In
addition, Janasz et al. (2002) suggested that is creativity is an new idea that produced
by someone. Another definition about creativity, it supported by Bernstein et al.
(2000) who claimed that “creativity is the ability to generate novel but viable or
12
workable solution to problem” (p. 201). Furthermore, Prucha, Walterava, and Mares
(1998) as cited Trnova (2014) said that “creativity is defined as mental ability based
on cognitive and motivational process where, however, an important role is played by
inspiration, imagination, and institution” (p. 55).
Teamwork capability. Teamwork is doing something together in a team.
According to Janasz, et al. (2002) teamwork is a “team of a formal group consisting
of people who work together intensively to achieve a common group goal. The
essence of teamwork is to create a product through collective effort of several
individuals” (p. 310). Another definition of teamwork was stated by Dolage and
Hearth (2013) that “teamwork encouragea member and facilitates cooperative, instills
a sense of pride, trust and group identify. It fosters commitment, team spirit and helps
the teams to achieve their goals (p. 25).
Responsibility. There are two definitions of responsibility provided in this
research. Firstly, based on Oxford dictionary (2010, p. 376) “responsibility is duty to
deal with or take care of” (p. 376). Secondly, according to Duangjan (2014, p. 80)
“responsibility is a basic important value of ethics and is a behavioral trait that should
be encourage in other to develop personal quality.”
Assessing Students’ Soft skills. Assessing students’ soft skills. Assessing
students’ soft skills is important to help the lecturers to develop the students’ skills
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and find out the appropriate strategies in teaching and assessing the soft skills in the
classroom. Dorowoju and Onuka (2014) stated:
“assessment of soft skills is as important has hard skills and one of the
challenges of soft skills assessment in school has to do with determining with
appropriate method for assessing soft skills. It becomes imperative to examine the
appropriate methods for assessing soft skills” (p. 608).
The Roles of a Teacher or Lecturer
A teacher is not only someone who teaches students in front of class, but also
the one who has some roles in teaching Harmer (2002) mentioned that a teacher can
possess several roles, namely as a controller, organizer, assessor, prompter,
participant, resource, tutor, and observer.
Teachers as controllers. When acting as controllers, teachers are responsible
for the class and the class or group activities. They have to “take the role, tell students
things, organize drills, read aloud, and various other ways exemplify the quality
teacher-fronted classroom” (Harmer, 2002, p. 58).
Teachers as organizers. As organizers, teachers manage students to
undertake various activities. “This often involves giving the students’ information,
telling them how they are going to do the activity, putting them in to pair or group,
and finally closing things down when it is time to stop” (Harmer, 2002, p. 58)
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Teachers as assessors. Students may except that their teacher will tell them
whether or not they do the things well so that teachers should have a role as assessors.
Assessing the students’ performance can be carried out through “offering feedback
and correction, and grading students in various ways” (Harmer, 2002, p. 59)
Teachers as prompters. Another role of teachers is as prompters. For
instance, “in a role-play activity, students lose the thread of what is going on or they
lost of word. They may not be quite sure how to proceed. Teachers should adopt
some kind of a prompting role” (Harmer, 2002, p. 60)
Teachers as participants. During a class activity, teachers may do not get
engaged in the activity and let students do it by themselves. The teachers’
involvements is only intervening later to offer feedback and/or correct mistakes”
(Harmer, 2002, p. 60). Teachers may get involved in the activity as participants
instead of teachers.
Teachers as resources. Teachers act as resources when students “ask how to
say or write something or word or phrase means. Students might want to know
information in the middle to ask information about where to look for something – a
book or a web site for example” (Harmer, 2002, p. 61).
Teachers as tutors. When acting as tutors, teachers provide guidance for
students to do an activity. Teachers can be tutors “when students are working on
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longer project, such as pieces of writing or preparations for a talk or debate” (Harmer,
2002, p. 62). However, the teachers should be aware that they may not intervene too
much and too little. They can also “combine the roles of prompters and resources
when acting as tutors” (Harmer, 2002, p. 62).
Teacher as observer. “Teacher observes what students do (especially in oral
communication activities) so that the teacher can be useful for group and individual
feedback” (Harmer, 2002, p. 62 ).
Strategy
Strategy is the methods of approaching a problem or task modes of operation
for achieving a particular end, planed designs for controlling, and manipulating
certain information (Brown, 2007, p. 260). In this research, the researcher used the
definition of strategies based on oxford dictionary (2010) that a “strategy is a plan
intended to achieve a particular purpose” (p. 439). Besides, Herrell and Jordan
(2004:5) as cited in Thomson (2012) “strategies was define as the approaches that can
be used across curricular areas to support the learning of students”(p. 4).
Lecturers’ Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft skills.
Strategies in Assessing Students’ Soft skills. Lecturers might have various
had strategies to assess their students’ soft skills. As suggested by Dorowuju et al.
(2014) there are methods that could be used to assess soft skills, as stated below.
“direct method, indirect method, and combination of direct and indirect
method assessment. Direct method in assessing soft skills included oral
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questions, projects, standardized test, oral quizzes or examination, teacher
made tests, and practical test. Indirect method included classroom observation,
interview, questionnaires, and checklist. For combination direct and indirect
method involve the method into two groups direct and indirect” (p. 608).
Another definition of direct and indirect methods of assessment that can be used to
assess students’ soft skills is based on project LEARN SLO assessment handbook
(2006) that:
“direct assessment methods require students to demonstrated knowledge and
skills and provided data that measure achievement of expected outcomes.
Students have to actively do something observable and measurable using the
knowledge and skills. Direct method assessment involved standardized test,
embedded questions on assignment, student presentation, and scoring rubric.
Indirect assessment method require that faculty actual student skills and
values from sources other than observable, direct evidence. Example of
indirect method; survey “(p.1-3).
Strategies in assessing students’ communication skill. Lecturers have some
strategies to assess communication skill of students through a speaking activity in
long life teaching process. According to Issaias and Isa (2013, p. 1) “various
assessment methods were used to promote communication skill; discussion forum
and presentation.” Moreover, surveys also can be used to assess communication skill
as suggested by Johnston, Fidelie, Robinson, Killion, and Behren (2012) that survey
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also can be used to assess communication skill. As suggested by Johnston, Fidelie,
Robinson, Killion, Behren (2012) checklist, survey, interview and essay exam are all
commonly method to assess communication skill.
Strategies in assessing students’ critical thinking skill. There are some
strategies that can be used by the lecturer to assess students’ critical thinking. As
suggested by Thomas (2011) method to assess critical thinking can be done through
evaluation and analysis. Next is analysis of synthesis of an arguments. For example,
by putting students into small groups discussion. Another proposed by Bailin et al
(1999) as cited in Lai (2011) explained that “critical thinking involves the ability to
respond constructively to others during group discussion, which implies interacting in
pro-social ways by encouraging and respecting the contributions of others”(p. 34).
Strategies in assessing students’ creativity. The lecturers had strategy to
assess creativity skill of students during process learning. Assessing creativity is
measure of students’ creativity. As suggested by Sternberg & Grigorenko 2007,
Sternberg, Jarvin & Grikorenko 2009, 2011, Sternberg & Lubart 1995b; Sternberg &
William, 1996 as cited in Sternberg (2012) explained that “assessing creativity means
evaluating students as they create, invent, discover, imagine if…., and predict” (p. 8).
From those activities creativity could be assessed by the lecturers.
Strategies in assessing students’ teamwork skill. A strategy that lecturers can
use to in assess students’ teamwork is team learning. Hughes and Jones (2011) stated:
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one possible approach to assess team work is through written teamwork test
and comprehensive assessment of team member effectiveness (CATME) that includes
contributing to the team work, interacting to the team, expecting quality (expected the
team to success), having relevant knowledge skill (p.57& 59).
Lecturers’ strategy in assessing students’ responsibility. The method that
the lecturers used to assess students’ responsibility skill is conscientious in task
because when students have high responsibility they always punctuality. Lewis
(2001) stated that “in particular, the role classroom discipline in promoting students
responsibility is examined. Duangjan (2014) stated that “the students lack their
responsibility toward their studies, as is seen by their poor class attendance, lack
responsibility towards their institution, as made clear by their participants and
teamwork skill” (p. 80).
Theoretical Framework
In this section, the researcher presents some theories related to this research.
According to Onabamiro, et al. (2014, p. 109) “soft skill is a sociological term
relating to a person’s emotional intelligence quotient (EIQ), the cluster of personality
traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habit, friendliness and
optimism that characterize relationship with other people.” Meanwhile, Majid (2012)
said “soft skills refer to personalities, attributes, qualities, and people personal
behavior of individuals” (p. 1036).
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There are many categories of soft skills. However, this research only focuses
on five soft skills suggested by Schulz (2008), namely communication skill, critical
thinking skill, creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill.
The lecturers have to know everything related to the class including their
students’ soft skills. In this research, the researcher analyzed lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills in terms of communication skill, critical thinking skill,
creativity skill, teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. The lecturers have to know
every soft skill that the students have. Therefore, the lecturers use some strategies to
assess those soft skills to help the lecturers understand well the ability of students.
In assessing five soft skills that discussed in this research, the strategy that
could be used by the lecturers to assess communication skill was discussion forum
and presentation. In addition, strategies in assessing students’ critical thinking was
analyzing the arguments by putting students into small groups. Another strategy that
could be used by the lecturer to assess creativity is evaluating students as they create,
invent, discover, imagine if…., and predict. Then for strategies to assess team work
written is teamwork test and comprehensive assessment of team member
effectiveness (CATME) that includes contributing to the team work, interacting to the
team, expecting quality (expected the team to success). The last was the strategy to
assess responsibility, through self -discipline and punctuality in submitting the task.
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Review of Related Studies
The researcher noticed that study of Onabamiro, et al. (2014) entitled
“Teachers’ Perception of Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills in Secondary School”
has the same characteristics as this research. . The objective of this study was to grasp
the ability of teachers in assessing of soft skills. The study used survey to collect the
data because the researchers attempted to get the data of teachers’ perception on
teaching and assessing soft skills in secondary school setting in Nigeria. The
population of this study was the teachers, and the samples of this study were 120
teachers from four schools. This study used random sampling.
This study reported that soft skills are teachable in secondary school. 65.4% to
89.2% were valid to make soft skills teachable in secondary school while 10.8% to
34.6% of them perceived these skills are not teachable. The findings implied that
majority of teachers believed that soft skills are teachable in Nigeria secondary
school, and can be taught in several ways.
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Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology that was used in this research.
This chapter covers research design, research participants, research setting, data
collection, and data analysis.
Research Design
This research was conducted to find out the lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills. Based on the research purposes, this research used
qualitative research design focusing on describing statements from participants.
Creswell (2011) defined that “qualitative research is an approach for exploring
and understanding the meaning individual or group describe to a social or human
problem” (p. 4). Based on the explanation, qualitative research is a research
design employed to describe people’s opinions or arguments.
The researcher used qualitative research method to explore people’s
experience. Hancock, Ockleford, and Windrige (2009) stated that qualitative
research method is used if the research questions are formulated to explore
people’s experience, their views. Therefore, qualitative research design is
appropriate for this research investigating the lecturers’ strategies in assessing
students’ soft skills at the English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.
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The researcher used descriptive qualitative method because the researcher
obtained the data based on the experience of the participants. Grant (2007) stated
“descriptive qualitative method is one method that seeks to present the voice of
the particular population under study” (p.16). Using descriptive qualitative
research helped the researcher to interpret the data of this research.
Research Participant
The participants of this research were four lecturers at the English
Education Department (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY).
The researcher used purposive sampling. As mentioned by Creswell (2012),
“purposive sampling can identify the sampling strategy and be able to define it
use. Purposive qualitative sampling is selecting people or sites who can best help
us understand phenomena of research” (p. 206).
The researcher selected the participants who met some criteria. First, the
participants were lecturers at the EED of UMY who have been teaching and
assessing students’ soft skills for at least two years. Additionally, they have been
teaching English more than three classes at the EED of UMY. Second, the
participants were familiar with assessing students’ soft skills and they have
experience of assessing students’ soft skills.
The researcher believed that the lecturers at the EED of UMY could
provide information for this research since they had experience in assessing
students’ soft skills. . However, the researcher only selected four lecturers as the
research participants and interviewed them. as suggested by Patton (2002, p. 244)
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“there are no rules for sample size in qualitative inquiry. Sample what you want to
know, the purpose of the inquiry, what a stake, what be useful, what credibility,
and what can be done with available time and resources.”
Research Setting
This research was conducted at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (EED of UMY). The researcher had
some reasons to choose the EED of UMY as the research setting. First, the
lecturers at the EED of UMY assess students’ soft skills, and promote soft skills
to the students. Students of the EED of UMY are assessed form the first to the last
semester. The soft skills are assessed at every class in every meeting at. Second,
the researcher is the student of the EED of UMY. Therefore, she understands the
issue and what has been happening at the EED of UMY. Last, the researcher
knows all of the lecturers so that she could gather the data easily.
Data collection method
The researcher conducted interviews to collect the data. According to
Creswell (2014), in qualitative interviews, the researcher could conduct
interviews, with participants. There were some steps of conducting interviews.
First, the participants were chosen by the researcher based on the aforementioned
criteria. The researcher contacted the lecturers of the EED of UMY and asked
them to become the participants of this research. After they agreed to be the
research participants, the researcher made an appointment with the participants by
WhatsApp to conduct interview.
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In the next time, the researcher met with participants to start the interview
in different day each participant. Before the interview, the researcher firstly
introduced herself to the participants, explained the aim of the interview, and
thanked the participants for their willingness to provide information for this
research.
The researcher used interviews because she could obtain the data based on
lecturers’ experience related to the strategies and the problems in assessing
students’ soft skills. The researcher interviewed four lecturers by using in-depth
interviews as the instrument of this research.
The questions of the interviews focused on lecturers’ strategies in
assessing students’ soft skills and problems faced by the lecturers in assessing
students’ soft skills. Each interview took 10 – 20 minutes. The interview was
conducted in the Indonesia language to avoid misunderstanding between the
interviewer and the participants. The researcher also used cell phone to record the
conversation during the interview so that the data could easily be analyzed.
Creswell (2014) stated that “the researcher record information from interviews by
making audiotaping” (p. 194). Then, the researcher transcribed the recorded data
into written data.
Data Analysis
There were some steps of data analysis, namely member checking, coding,
reporting the findings, interpreting and summarizing the data. After transcribing
the data, the researcher did member checking by returning the transcribed data to
25
the participants so that they can check the validity and the accuracy of the
transcription. Creswell (2012) stated that, in member checking process, the
researcher shows the data and asked them to check the accuracy. Member
checking is an important aspect to deal with the issue of the validity. In member
checking, the participants agreed with the transcription. The next step was coding.
Rossman and Rallis (2012) as cited in Creswell (2014) said that “coding is
process of organizing the data by bracketing chunk (or text or image segment) and
writing a word representing a category in the margins” (p. 197-197). There three
steps of coding; open coding, axial coding, selective coding but in this research
the researcher only used open coding because it was clear.
The first coding was open coding. According to Bohm (2004, p. 271), “it
is advisable to analyze single short textual passages (line by line). Subsequently,
larger paragraphs or even whole texts may be coded in order to avoid simple
paraphrasing.”
The last step of data analysis was data reporting. After the researcher did
all of the steps, she analyzed and described the data to find the results. The
findings of this study were discussed on the next chapter that the strategies and the
problems in assessing students’ soft skills at the EED of UMY were reported
26
Chapter Four
Finding and Discussion
This chapter provides two major sections of the research, which are the
presentation of the research finding and discussion. The findings and discussion
answer the two research questions and achieve the purposes of this research to
find out lecturers’ strategies and problems in assessing students’ soft skills at the
EED of UMY.
Lecturers’ strategies in assessing students’ soft skills at EED of UMY
Based on the interviews, the researcher obtained some information from
the participants related to the research questions. The researcher found some
strategies which the lecturers of the EED of UMY used in assessing students’ soft
skills in terms of communication skill, critical thinking skill, creativity skill,
teamwork skill, and responsibility skill. She found out that there were three
strategies used by the lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills. The first strategy
was direct methods including using rubric. The second strategy was combination
of direct and indirect methods using activities such as presentation, group
discussion, classroom discussion, critical thinking projects, consultation, making a
textbook, creating a simple dictionary, group projects, group work, teamwork
outcomes, self–discipline, and assignments. The last strategy was indirect
methods including using observation such as individual observation, direct class
observation, and observation during presentation).
27
Direct method used by lecturers in assessing students’ soft skills. The
lecturers at the EED of UMY used rubrics as a strategy to assess students’ soft
skills.
Finding 1: Using rubric as strategy to assess students’ soft skills. The
data showed that using rubric was the strategy to assess communication skill.
Participant two and four explained that assessing students’ communication skill
could use rubrics. Participant two stated, “To assess communication skill in the
classroom, we had a rubric to assess it. For example, to assess interpersonal skill,
we assess how students could communicate, be empathetic, and do teamwork”
(P2.1). Besides, participant four said that rubric could be a strategy to assess soft
skills, especially communication skill. Participant four said, “At the EED, soft
skills are assessed 20 percent. The soft skills are divided into four soft skills that
one of them is communication skill assessed using a rubric” (P4.1).
Based on the statements of two participants, rubrics can be used as a
strategy to assess students’ communication skill, especially communication skill.
It is in line with a project of LEARN SLO assessment handbook (2006)
explaining that direct method assessment includes a scoring rubric.
Combination direct and indirect method used by the lecturers in
assessing students’ soft skills.
Finding 2: Using activities as strategy to assess students’ soft skills.
There were some activities organized by the lecturers to assess five soft skills,
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namely communication skill, critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, and
responsibility. The activities used to assess those soft skills were presentation,
critical thinking project, making a textbook, creating a simple d