Capacity Levels of Academic Staff in a Malaysian Public University: Students’ Perspective

Abstract

This research aims to develop a competency model for staff of higher education
institutions in Malaysia. The model involves the listing of the main features and
implementation strategy for the development of academic competence.
Specifically, this research aims to achieve the following research objectives: a) to
identify if there is any significant difference between locally and internationally
educated staff in terms of capacities, b) to identify if there is any significant
correlation between the following demographics and levels of capacity, i.
teaching experience, and ii. academic position; and c) to identify the level of
capacity effectiveness among staff? This research applies a quantitative
methodology through survey research. The sample includes 120 students in a
public university evaluating 10 staff; 5 locally educated & 5 international. The
instruments involves a modified questionnaire from an original instrument by
Tengku Noorainun Tengku Shahdan (2011) The data analysis will use both
statistical descriptive analysis – mean and standard deviation – and statistical
inference analysis – Spearman’s r correlation and Mann-Whitney U. This research
found that there is no significant difference between locally and internationally
educated faculties in terms of capacities when p = 0.267 (p > 0.05). For the second
research question, this research found that there is no significant correlation
between teaching experience with capacity level when p=0.314. On the other
hand, there is a significant correlation between academic position with capacity
level when p=0.032. For the third research question, this research found that both
locally and internationally educated staff have a high level of effectiveness and
satisfactory when the overall mean score is more than 3.80. The implication of
this research is staff must pay more attention to developing themselves through
scholarly works.