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Peer-Reviewed Article
Volume 8, Issue 2 (2019), pp. 57-73
Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education
ISSN: 2166-2681 | https://ojed.org/jise
Volunteerism is Associated with Improved Soft
Skills of Marine Engineering Students
in the Philippines
Ian I. Llenares
National University, Philippines
Custer C. Deocaris
Technological Institute of the Philippines, Philippines
Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, Philippines
ABSTRACT
We assessed the impact on soft skills in among 60 marine engineering
students after completing a 36-month long community service program. A
Soft Skills-Graduate Attribute Scale was developed to measure the following
outcomes, namely, professional competence, critical thinking skills,
communication skills, lifelong learning, social and ethical responsibility,
productivity, and interpersonal skills. Our results show that the students
who participated regularly in volunteer activities possess significantly
higher measures of graduate attributes relating to professional competence,
communication skills, and social and ethical responsibility compared to
non-regular and first-time volunteers. These specific soft skills were aligned
with the expected outcomes based on the program design of the volunteer
activities. Our study adds to the growing literature on the value of service-
learning programs in higher education as community-oriented programs
can potentially result in improving soft skills and cross-cultural
competencies of students, especially in the technical fields.
Keywords: volunteerism, soft-skills, community outreach, positive psychology
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BACKGROUND
Volunteerism is an initiative or action intended to help another person,
group or organization by an individual who willingly and non-obligatorily
employs personal time, resources, and skills without expecting any benefit
in return (Penner 2004; United Nations Volunteer, 2015). Monetary reward
is not a principal motivating factor for this pro-social behavior
(Volunteering Australia, 2015). Volunteerism also plays significant role in
society by enhancing employability of marginalized people, strengthening
social connectivity, delivering excellent goods and public services, and
supporting youth education (Wu, 2011).
For students, volunteerism has been recognized to impact on their
sense of responsibility and citizenship. Students who volunteer regularly are
more likely to engage in varied political behaviors, such as voting and
working for political campaigns in later life (Youniss et al. 1999; Wilson &
Musick 1999). They participate more often in community service activities
(Astin & Astin 2000) and tend to choose service-oriented professions, such
as teaching, after graduation (Avalos et al. 1999). Some investigators also
noted that volunteerism improves academic performance (Astin & Sax
1998), develops leadership potential (Astin & Astin 2000), boosts self-
confidence (Astin et al. 2000), and expands career paths and personal
wellbeing (Wu, 2011; Nazroo and Matthews, 2012).
A strategy to promote school volunteerism in higher education is via
service-learning programs, or the merging of community service with
pedagogy and research (Levesque-Bristol et al. 2010; Clinton & Thomas
2011; Eyler 2002; Govekar & Govekar 2008; Bringle & Hatcher 2000;
Bourner & Millican 2011; Gullatt & Jan 2003; Kielsmeier et al. 2004). In
the United States, higher education institutions (HEIs) actively motivate
students to join volunteer service by incorporating volunteerism into the
curriculum and general education courses (Cohen & Kinsey 1994; Markus
et al. 1993). Volunteer activity through service-learning programs are also
popular in Europe and in Asia (Bosanquet et al. 2007, 2012; Clinton and
Thomas 2011; McCarthy et al., 2005).
While several publications cite the benefits of volunteerism to
students, in the era of outcomes-based education, its impact on student
competencies has not been thoroughly explored, especially in the
Philippines. Here, we analyze the effects of volunteerism on some soft
skills on a group of marine engineering students enrolled in a private HEI
that pioneered outcomes-based education in the Philippines (Llanes, 2008).
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While engineering schools emphasize technical knowledge grounded on
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), we are aware
that 21st century engineers are also expected to cultivate a wide range of
soft skills and competencies useful in society and the workplace
(Abdulwahed et al. 2013). The soft skills assessed in this investigation are
the institutional learning outcomes (ILOs) of the private HEI, namely,
professional competence, critical thinking skills, communication skills,
lifelong learning, social and ethical responsibility, productivity, and
interpersonal skills.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
An approach to enhance student learning experience while complementing
soft skills development is through direct hands-on experiential activities
aimed at solving real-world problems (Hagan, 2012; Kolb & Kolb, 2009).
With its convergence with the various learnings derived from life experience
and formal education, a student may experience what is deemed as a holistic
education (Fry, Ketteridge, & Marshall, 2009; Kolb & Kolb, 2009). Smith
(2001) suggests that experiential learning can also provide added
opportunities to observe societal problems, form abstract concepts, and
validate theoretical knowledge. As a modality for promoting meaningful
and conscious personal learning, the following are the basic assumptions of
an experiential education: a) the acquisition of knowledge is a process in
itself; b) it is a holistic process of adaptation resulting from synergetic
interactions between the person and the environment; and c) it creates new
knowledge (Kolb & Kolb, 2009). According to Kolb (1984), experiential
learning occurs in 4 stages: Stage 1, formation of experience; Stage 2,
reflective observation of the situation; Stage 3, abstract conceptualization of
the phenomenon; and Stage 4, active experimentation. It is noteworthy that
theory and practice are both conceptualized and re-positioned to deepen a
student’s understanding of the world (Kolb & Fry, 1975). These features
make experiential learning transformative because it shapes the
understanding and interpretation of theories, beliefs, values, and practices of
a person (Ambrose et al., 2010; Cooper, Orrell, & Bowden, 2010).
Given the framework on experiential learning, we are interested to
study the phenomenon through the lens of volunteerism as its shapes the soft
skills of students in highly technical careers involving exposure to multi-
cultural environments of the workplace, such as seafaring.
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RESEARCH METHOD
Participants
The study employs a descriptive survey research design involving
60 college students, aged 16-24 years old, enrolled under the Bachelor of
Science in Marine Engineering program during the 2nd Semester, School
Year 2015-2016 in a private HEI in Quezon City, Philippines. The
respondents were purposively selected based on their regularity of
participation in 14 community service engagements from 2013-2015 (see
Table I).
Survey Instrument
Demographic questionnaire. While maintaining respondent’s
anonymity, the researchers gathered data on gender, age, grade point
average (GPA), parents' education, and combined family monthly income.
Instrument. The Soft Skills-Graduate Attribute Scale (SS-GAS)
(Cronbach α = 0.77) was used to assess student opinion on the attainment of
the ILOs described in Table II. We previously piloted the instrument with
56 college students from architecture, education, and civil engineering
programs in the same school. The questionnaire uses a 7-point Likert scale
from 1 (‘strongly disagree’) to 7 (‘strongly agree') on each graduate
attribute. SS-GAS consists of 27 items from the 7 ILLOs: professional
competence (4 items) (Cronbach α = 0.92), critical thinking skills (5 items)
(Cronbach α = 0.82), communication skills (3 items) (Cronbach α = 0.78),
lifelong learning (4 items) (Cronbach α = 0.70), social and ethical
responsibility (4 items) (Cronbach α = 0.85), productivity (3 items)
(Cronbach α = 0.76), and interpersonal skills (4 items) (Cronbach α = 0.86).
Each participant took an average of 10 minutes to accomplish the
questionnaire.
To interpret the results, an anchor-based approach, i.e., a criterion is
applied to define a substantial change, was utilized. Here, the computed
mean score falling within the prescribed range of 1.00-1.86 was categorized
as 'very low'; 1.87-2.72 as, 'low'; 2.73-3.58, 'below average'; 3.59-4.44,
'average'; 4.45-5.30, 'above average'; 5.31-6.16, 'high'; and 6.17 – 7.00 as
'very high'. A major limitation of the anchor-based approach is that it does
not take measurement precision into account (Lydick and Epstein, 1993).
Data Gathering Procedure
Pen-and-paper survey forms were given to the respondents to obtain
data on demographics and soft skills. The respondents were provided with
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Table I
The community engagement activities undertaken by the respondents. Institutions
with labelled asterisk are national government agencies. The different disciplinary
programs partnered with the marine engineering program for specific community
activities are indicated.
Activity
Site
Collaborating
Departments/Institutions
Expected Soft Skills or
Outcomes
International
coastal clean-up
Freedom
Island,
Paranaque
City
Local Government Units
(LGUs); Department of
Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR)*
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Basic welding
training
On-campus
LGUs
Professional competence;
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Development of
multi-sensor
floating garbage
disposal system
On-campus
Professional competence;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill;
Productivity;
Social and ethical
responsibility
Development of
portable solar
lamps
On-campus
Electrical engineering
program
Professional competence;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill;
Productivity;
Social and ethical
responsibility
Estero (drainage)
clean-up drive
Quezon
City
LGUs
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Tree planting,
literacy, and
numeracy projects
Bulacan
Information technology,
education and electrical
engineering programs;
DENR*
Professional competence;
Communication skills;
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal
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Mangrove planting
Freedom
Island,
Paranaque
City
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Coastal clean-up
Freedom
Island,
Paranaque
City
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
International
coastal clean-up
Freedom
Island,
Paranaque
City
DENR*
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
House painting
Tanza,
Cavite
Architecture, civil
engineering, electrical
engineering, business
education programs; Habitat
for Humanity (NGO)
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Brigada Eskwela
literacy program
Quezon
City
Department of Education
(DepEd)*
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Coastal clean-up
Freedom
Island,
Paranaque
City
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Tree planting
Bulacan
DENR*
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
Relief operation
after Typhoon
Haiyan
DSWD
Center,
Pasay City
Department of Social
Welfare and Development
(DSWD)*
Social and ethical
responsibility;
Interpersonal skill;
Communication skill
the following information about the survey: a) the goal of the study, b)
absence of monetary incentive to participate, c) the potential societal
benefits of the research, and d) option to withdraw from the study at any
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point in time. To ensure the confidentiality, individual folders were provided
to the respondents to insert the completed survey sheets prior to submission.
The respondents were also told that their names and other identifiers were
not required to be written on the answer sheet. The respondents were also
reminded that there were no correct or wrong answers, not to leave any
items unanswered and they can take their time in answering the survey
questions. The study protocol was reviewed by the Research and
Development Management Office (RDMO) of the school.
Data Analysis
Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test normality of the data. Since our
data was found to be non-normally distributed, which implies that the mean
values are sensitive to outliers, we assigned the median as the measure of
central tendency (Field, 2013). Kruskal-Wallis H test, a non-parametric test,
was used to determine the effects of volunteerism on the soft skills with p <
0.05 as being significant (Field, 2013). Cohen’s d for non-parametric data
was computed to report the effect size (Lenhard & Lenhard, 2016).
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A focus of youth volunteerism is around educational institutions, especially
in the higher education sector. Despite the popularity of student
volunteerism, its impact on student competencies is relatively under-
researched in the Philippines (Llenares & Deocaris 2018; Llenares &
Deocaris 2015; Santillan 2011; Cardenas et al. 2009; Lalap et al. 2013). This
observation is surprising given that community service is a mandatory
requirement in Philippine higher education delivered through the National
Service Training Program (or NSTP). NSTP is a 6-unit credit course
offered for 2 semesters. During the 1st semester, NSTP comprises of
lectures on humanistic self-development, Filipino characteristics and its
value system, disaster management, and various current national issues.
Formal community immersion programs are performed during the 2nd
semester. It should be noted that NSTP is a mandated by a national law,
Republic Act #9163 (or the NSTP Act of 2001).
While the body of literature on curricular benefits of volunteerism
has been expanding (Astin & Sax, 1998; Astin et al. 2000; Avalos et al.
1999), there is a growing need to examine the impact of volunteerism
among technical students, especially in the context of molding these
graduates to acquire a fuller skill set aligned with industry needs. The term
“soft skills” are variably denoted as ILOs, “key competencies,” “generic
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skills,” “generic competencies,” or “employability skills.” These allied skill
sets are considered vital to enhance technical competency in a way which
can be applied to a broader aspect of life and work (Rychen & Salganik
2003; Abdulwahed et al. 2013; Acomi & Acomi, 2016).
How then does volunteerism impact of the soft skills of our 21st-
century engineers? In this study, we focused on marine engineering students
because the Philippines is the leading source of seafaring labor in the world.
Filipinos comprise over 20% of the total shipboard workforce in
international trading fleets (Leggate 2004; Corbett & Winebrake, 2008).
Marine engineers are involved with the design, development, building,
installation, inspection, and maintenance of equipment and parts that make
boats and other maritime vessels (Taylor, 1996). With the international
dispersion of marine engineers, the students are expected to operate within
heightened cross-cultural global cooperation requiring intercultural
competencies and soft skills.
Table II.
Operational definitions of the type of volunteer engagement and soft skills. Examples of
statements from the instrument are shown.
Terms
Definitions
Regular
volunteers
Those who consistently provide time, effort and skills to support civic
activities, such as initiating community outreach planning, organizing
fellow volunteers and implementing volunteer activities
Non-regular
volunteers
Those who volunteer whenever they are free from their academic
obligations, for example, during the semestral break
First-timer
volunteers
Those who have volunteered before the survey yet only within the
context of the mandatory school-based service program
Graduate
Attributes
Refers to the soft skills expected to develop among students across
academic programs when they graduate
Professional
Competence
Refers to the understanding and mastery of fundamental knowledge
and skills required for effective professional practice in the field of
specialization
“I am updated on the major developments in the professional or
discipline-related program."
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Critical
Thinking and
Problem-
Solving Skills
Refers to critical and creative thinking in providing solutions to
discipline-related problems
“I analyze problems and issues and obtains relevant data before
making decisions."
Communication
Skills
Refers to effective communication skills, both orally and writing,
using the English language
“I can communicate my ideas clearly, convincingly, and in an
organized manner."
Lifelong
learning
Refers to the lifelong learning skills in pursuit of personal
development and excellence in professional practice
“I can diagnose what I know from what I don’t know.”
Social and
Ethical
Responsibility
Refers to the personal values and beliefs as ethical professional
consistent with Filipino family values, industry-desired values, and
global citizen values
“I put into mind preserving natural resources in my work."
Productivity
Refers to the nation-building and national development through the
application of new technology
“I use software and other modern tools to develop cheaper
technology in addressing community problems”
Interpersonal
skills
Refers to working effectively in multi-disciplinary and multicultural
teams
“I can effectively manage and resolve conflict within a group.”
The student respondents were selected based on their community
outreach portfolios. Although most of the outreach projects were not
credited under the regular courses, the school ensured that the design of the
NSTP volunteer activities were aligned with skills and technical expected
from marine engineering students.
Table I shows the community competencies expected from marine
engineering students’ activities co-developed by the faculty of the marine
engineering program in partnership with the Social Orientation and
Community Program (SOCIP) staff. SOCIP is the office that takes charge
of coordination, implementation, and monitoring of NSTP community
projects. An example of a skills-matched volunteer activity for marine
engineers is the design and assembly of portable solar lamps for the
impoverished communities in Montalban, Rizal, a province 20-km from the
school.
Since a multidisciplinary perspective was adopted in the design of
the community engagement program, we hypothesize that a single volunteer
activity can simultaneously involve the application of several soft skills.
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For example, the development and community deployment of a cost-
effective multisensory floating garbage collector is expected to involve soft
skills other than professional (or engineering) competence, such as
communication skills, interpersonal skills, productivity, and social and
ethical responsibility. Interestingly, not all the community projects were
related to marine engineering. Some students collaborated with their peers
from other disciplines to support the literacy and numeracy projects for
indigent communities, refurbish public school classroom fixtures during the
‘Brigada Eskwela' (or School Brigade) program, and paint houses in
partnership with Habitat for Humanity-Philippines (HHP). All in all, the
respondents were exposed to a total of 14 diverse volunteer activities.
However, based on the volunteer activities in Table I, the expected
outcomes leaned more on student communication skills, interpersonal skills,
and social and ethical responsibility. There was lesser involvement of
professional competence and productivity in the community-based
activities.
Table III
Soft Skills Profile of the respondents (n=60) based on the SS-GAS Inventory
Soft Skills
Median Score
Rank
Description
Professional Competence
5.50
6
High
Critical Thinking
5.80
1
High
Communication Skill
5.67
5
High
Lifelong learning
5.75
2.5
High
Social and Ethical Responsibility
5.75
2.5
High
Productivity
5.30
7
Above Average
Interpersonal
5.75
2.5
High
Using the soft skills instrument to extract student perspectives on
the attainment of the soft skills, we observed that soft skill scores of the
students were already generally high (Table III). The levels of their soft
skills may be a good indicator for the alignment of their competencies as far
as the Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping (STCW) is
concerned.
To separate the effects of classroom-based learning from the
volunteer work, we stratified the respondents according to their volunteering
activity: regular, non-regular volunteers and first-time volunteers (see Table
II for the operational definitions). Significant differences between the
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groups emerged when it comes to professional competence, communication
skills, and social and ethical responsibility (see Figure 1). These skill sets,
in our opinion, may have been likely enhanced through the relevant
volunteer activities that require the development of solutions to existing
community problems. It is interesting to note that these soft skills are
associated with our expected outcomes as shown in Table I.
An interesting observation is that the enhancement of soft skills was
only seen with students who performed community outreach on a regular
basis. These volunteers, compared with occasional and first-time
volunteers, experienced the improvement in their soft skills probably
because of their general interest for life learning. This observation is
consistent with the results of our earlier study showing Filipino students are
attracted to volunteer activities for personal and career growth (Llenares &
Deocaris 2015). Other groups have also noted this observation (Primavera,
1999; Eppler et al. 2011).
Among these 3 soft skills that that were significantly enhanced by
volunteerism, it was score for social and ethical responsibility that increased
the most between first-time volunteers and regular volunteers. This is
particularly promising since there is move among educational policy experts
to highlight engineering ethics in the curriculum as engineers are expected
to come up with better value judgment and assess the impact of their
actions. This is properly timed as a response to the growing number of
engineering-associated disasters, such as the Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkway
Collapse (1981), the Chernobyl nuclear leak (1986) and Space Shuttle
Columbia disaster (2003). The Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology (ABET) draws to attention the study of ethics in order for
students to better acquire "an understanding of the professional and ethical
responsibility” (Bucciarelli, 2008). Besides having a firm grasp of science,
mathematics and engineering fundamentals, ABET-accredited institutions
will have to aim to produce graduates with soft skills in communication,
multidisciplinary teamwork, and lifelong learning skills and awareness of
social and ethical considerations (Rugarcia et al. 2000).
We no longer pursued further study on other academic disciplines,
such as teacher education and information technology education, despite
these courses being more popular in the Philippines. Instead, we focused on
marine engineering program because of the urgent national issue when the
study was being conceived. In 2013, the European Union questioned the
quality of Philippine maritime education prompting the Commission on
Higher Education (CHED), together with Maritime Industry Authority, to
heighten inspection and monitoring of all private and public HEIs offering
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maritime courses (Magkilat, 2018). Any substandard findings resulted in
the closure of programs, as in the case of a local college (GMA news online,
2011).
Figure 1. Graduate Attributes of Marine Engineering Students. Median scores
based on the Soft Skills-Graduate Attribute Scale (SS-GAS) of 60 undergraduate
marine engineering students based on the frequency of volunteering activities:
regular volunteer (R), non-regular volunteer (NR) and first-time volunteer (FT).
Asterisk indicates a significant difference at p<0.05 based on Kruskal-Wallis test
(H) and Cohen’s Test for non-parametric data (d) in the Soft Skill-Graduate
Attribute scale for Professional competence (PC) (H = 49.16, p > 0.01, d = 4.43),
communication skill (CS) (H = 8.57, p < 0.01, d = 0.78) and social and ethical
responsibility (SER) (H = 53.16, p< 0.01, d = 2.97). Other soft skills, i.e., critical
thinking (CT), lifelong learning (LL), productivity (P) and interpersonal skill (IS)
did not show a significant difference based on the volunteering frequencies.
IMPLICATIONS
With pressures from both national and international bodies, the Philippines
responded by enacting innovative strategies to augment and improve the
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quality of its maritime education programs. Among the steps implemented
were the enforcement of stricter academic retention policies, application,
and upgrading of technology, and strengthening of shipboard training. In
the light of this pressing situation, the salutary effects of community
engagement and volunteerism on soft skills of marine engineering students
affirm the need to enhance policies and practices that will promote skills-
matched volunteerism in maritime education. It would be worth
investigating how volunteerism would positively impact other courses as
well.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
As this study follows a descriptive design, future studies may involve a
longitudinal approach, e.g. a graduate tracer study, to better measure the
impact of soft skills enhancement and volunteerism on employability.
On the methodology, we did not evaluate the soft skills before and
after the community-based projects as it is difficult to isolate the effects of
discrete activities on specific behavior or competency given several other
confounding variables, e.g., family background, student values, etc.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
There is no conflict of interest. This research did not receive any specific grant from
funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the support of the Technological Institute of the
Philippines (TIP) where Ian Llenares was affiliated as Coordinator of the Social
Orientation & Community Involvement Program (SOCIP). Custer C. Deocaris was
the Chief of the Research Management Division, Office of Planning, Research and
Knowledge Management, Commission on Higher Education (CHED), an office in
charge of crafting policies and programs in higher education research and extension.
The views expressed by the authors in this publication do not necessarily reflect the
views of the Commission.
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IAN I. LLENARES, Ph.D., is the Chair of the Department of Psychology, National
University in Manila. His major research interest is the field of positive psychology.
Email: iillenares@national-u.edu.ph
CUSTER C. DEOCARIS, Ph.D., is the former Research Chief of the Commission
on Higher Education (CHED). He currently works as a research specialist of the
Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), Department of Science and
Technology, and is a graduate school professorial lecturer of the Technological
Institute of the Philippines. His current research interest is in field of “science for
science & innovation policy.” Email: cdeocaris@gmail.com
Manuscript submitted: January 28, 2019
Manuscript revised: May 27, 2019
Accepted for publication: December 19, 2019
