The Development of Generic Competency Portfolio for Malaysian TVET-Construction Graduates

Abstract

Construction graduates are currently in high demand by contractors in all types of construction work. The diversity of employment opportunities for construction management graduates, increase the need in having a portfolio for skills to work efficiently and effectively with other professions in the industry. Consequently, there are numerous TVET institutes that potentially produce local workforce as highly skilled workers in the construction industry. However, it is believed that, there is a persisting lack of generic competency among the construction graduates and an absence of strategic framework for Malaysian construction graduates. Therefore, this research investigates generic competencies required by construction graduates in the management scopes from the perspectives of the construction practitioners. Drawing on a construction graduates generic competencies and roles, and tasks framework, a structured questionnaire survey was used to elicit data from construction practitioners in the industry. The data was analyzed using Rasch Measurement Model with PCA, item and person reliability and item measure analysis. Result from this research indicates that industries require graduates to perform more on analytical and critical thinking in the project management phase. Moreover, in the construction management phase, it has been found that industries expect construction graduates to perform more on teamwork competency.  Furthermore, this research identified that site management phase request more on problem-solving and teamwork competency from construction graduates. Therefore, it is believe that these research findings will be useful in assisting the universities and industries to improve the generic competency amongst construction students by providing valuable insight and expanding current knowledge-base of those elements and variables required by industries.