Perceptions of Undergraduate Students of Islamic Studies of the Importance of Soft Skills for Education and Future Career at King Khalid University

Abstract

This paper examines Islamic undergraduate students’ awareness and perceptions of the importance of soft skills for education and future career among undergraduate students of Islamic Studies at King Khalid University. The study is carried out to redirect the focus of undergraduate students' training and development goals to the acquisition of soft skills, which have a very high effect on improving undergraduate student’s performances. This study aims to discover student awareness and perception towards the importance of soft skills among engineering students. This study adopted a quantitative research approach. A questionnaire was administered and used to gather the data.  Also, the questionnaire was specifically designed to examine the importance of soft skills for education and future career for Islamic Studies undergraduate students. The target population in this study consisted of 4500 Islamic undergraduate students. The purposive sample was 300 students were randomly selected from the population with an 85 percent confidence level within 0.05 risk of sampling error. The findings of the study indicated that   Islamic undergraduate students at King Khalid University were aware of the importance of soft skills for their education and future carrier as well. Participants ranked the following soft skills as the essential skills for Islamic undergraduate students' improving decision making, besides a greater willingness to accept the ideas of others, improving leadership skills, oral and verbal communication, a gain in self-confidence, small group discussions, and learned more about technology and various applications. They thought soft skills are important for accelerating students’ academic performance and developing the learning environment while less important for finding a better job opportunity and considering it a primary employment requirement by modern workplaces.