THE EFFECT OF CO CURRICULUM INVOLVEMENT TOWARD THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE, LEADERSHIP ROLE, AND PERCEIVED DEVELOPMENT OF EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS

Abstract

Co-curriculum involvement has been strongly linked to higher rates of student completion. However, industries nowadays need the cross-disciplinary workplace, incorporation of 21st century “soft†skills. Most of graduates are not realized this reality of working environment when they venture into later employers because of their poor proficiency in the language, although they were highly qualified academically (Malaysian Employers Federation). This research is to identify the level of academic performance, leadership role, and perceived development of employability skills and Co-curriculum Involvement among the undergraduate students at ABC University and to identify the effect of Co-curriculum Involvement toward academic performance, toward leadership role, and toward the perceived employability skills among the undergraduate students. Method used in this study is quantitative data. Online survey questionnaire distributed to 652 students that already took 2 credits registered at Centre of Co-curriculum, ABC University The results shows that the positive relationship between Co-curriculum Involvement towards the academic performance, leadership role, and perceived development of employability skills among students. The results shows that level of leadership role is highest than other variables with the highest frequency, 384 out of 652 respondents. The correlation also shows that the effect of co-curriculum involvement towards leadership role with the strong relationship, 0.864 and significant value less than 0.05. The regression also shows that academic performance, leadership role, and perceived development of employability skills have highly affected the co-curriculum involvement with the beta value of R=0.952. This research is to make the students realize that co-curriculum involvement is a vital to improve the academic performance, leadership role, and perceived development of employability skills.