Validation of Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument ( MOSSAI ) for Use in Nigeria

Currently, it has become an accepted norm nearly all over the globe to teach and assess soft skills. However, in Nigeria, it is an emerging area of interest that needs to be addressed squarely. In the light of the fore-going, this study validated a modified version of Measuring and Assessment Soft Skills (MASS) (an instrument developed and used by twenty European researchers from five countries), for use in the Nigeria setting. It was administered on a randomly selected sample from the northern and southern parts of Nigeria. Survey design was used in the study. The 15-point instrument was administered on 600 participants each from the Northern and Southern parts of Nigeria with a total of 1,200 participants. This instrument also included method for teaching and assessing soft skills. Factor analysis was used to analyze the data in Section B of the instrument, mean and standard deviation for Sections C and D. The results show that the soft skills needed to enhance performances in workplaces are teachable and examinable in Nigeria. It was, therefore, recommended that examining bodies should consider adopting or adapting the instrument for use in the Sub-Saharan Africa.


Introduction
There is no doubt that there are skills and abilities necessary for success in life.Such skills and behavioural competences are often latent in nature, yet they are required to achieve success in life endeavours.Hence, the term "soft skill" is used to differentiate these skills and innate abilities from technical or hard skills which are learnt.Shakir [1] described soft skills as non academic skills in the form of leadership, team work, communication and life-long learning.Education Equals Economics (E3) Alliance [2] asserted that soft skills is a set of skills, abilities and traits that pertain to personality, attitude and behaviours rather than formal technical knowledge.Kechagias [3] expressed soft skills as intra and inter-personal or socio-emotional skills essential for personal development, social participation and workplace success.They include such skills as ability to work on multi-disciplinary teams, effective communication, cultural awareness and expression, diligence, adaptability and honesty among others.
To Bunk [4], the typology of soft skills could be explained from three major perspectives.These include the capacity for social adaptation, disposition for cooperation, and team spirit.Nabi [5] classified soft skills into personal skills, communication skills and problem-solving skills.Crosbie [6] identified eight soft skills needed by the individuals in workplace which include collaboration/teamwork, communication skills, initiative, leadership ability, people development/coaching, personal effectiveness/personal mastery, planning, organizing and presentation skills.
Similarly, Kechagias [3] asserted that soft skills could be summarized into a series of twenty skills which are categorized into four general blocks: emotional self-awareness, self-management or self-government (self-control), social awareness (empathy), and management of social relations skills.These typologies were later reviewed by some scholars with a list of fifteen most important socio-emotional dimensions (of soft skills) which include: adaptability, assertiveness, emotional assessment of oneself and of others, emotional expression, emotional management of others, emotional regulation, low impulsiveness, the skills required to form relationships, self-esteem, self-motivation, social skills, stress management, empathy, happiness and optimism.
The importance of such skills in personal development for effective performance of one's task has necessitated the advocacy for the teaching and assessing of soft skills in a formal school setting.Gordon et al. [7] identified a range of rationales for focusing on soft skills development which include learner's empowerment, preparing worker for the labour market, supporting learner in becoming an effective citizen as well as an effective parent/family member to live respectively in a culturally diverse society and to promote environmental awareness.Interestingly, this underlying purpose affects the aim, teaching methods, power dynamics between teacher and learner, the areas to be assessed and how assessment is to be done.
Aworanti [8] opined that some forms of soft skills, that could be realized are inherent in every individual.As an individual, it is expected in a workplace to relate well with others, be passionate to encourage others and handle various challenges.No wonder a lot of companies today do not only assess their current staff and future recruits on their business skills but are more interested in assessing them on the various aspects of soft skill competencies with a view to knowing the extent they relate and communicate with others.Incorporating soft skills into the school system, Lee et al [9] opined that the teacher needed to create a positive culture that would encourage students' learning achievement.Such classroom culture should be geared towards generating students' friendly relationships, appreciating students' achievements, creating interesting learning experiences and developing leadership and sense of duty among others Kechagias [3] identified two different schools of thought in the teaching of soft skills.These are the 'generalists' and the 'specifists'.To the generalists, soft skills are seen as generic which can be taught separately from content and applied to any discipline.However the specifists believed that soft skills could not be taught as one-shot inoculation of skill development but to be embedded in each course or subject since knowledge is fundamentally situated.In consonance with these approaches, twenty European researchers (3 from UK, 5 from Greece, 4 from Sweden, 3 from Romania and 5 from Netherlands) described the teaching approaches as "Autonomous Teaching" or "Stand-Alone Approach" and "Intermixed Teaching" or "Embedded Approach".
A fifteen-item soft skills assessment instrument was developed by these twenty European researchers which later formed the basis for the assessment of soft skills in Europe.The fifteen-item soft skills assessment include: manners, ownership of tasks, attendance, motivation, professionalism, work output, conduct in workplace, time keeping, verbal communication, organization/planning, team working/respect, helping others, conscientiousness, ability to ask for help and adaptability/flexibility.It is obvious that what works in one place may not necessarily work in another, perhaps as a result of socio-cultural differences.This invariably, calls for adaptation, so that such thing can also work in a different setting, hence, the need of revalidation of instrument for use in Nigeria.

Statement of Problem
Despite the popularity of teaching and assessment of soft skills in the Western world, the integration of the concept of soft skills in African school setting is yet to be fully embraced.Some African scholars see soft skills as being innate to be taught and examined while others believed they are teachable but not examinable.Another impediment to the formalization of socio-emotional skills education is getting appropriate methods for the teaching and assessment of soft skills.This paper is aimed at seeking the stakeholders' views on the appropriate methods for teaching and assessing soft skills in Nigerian educational system.This paper, therefore, validated a modification of the instrument developed by the European researchers for the measuring and assessment of soft skills (MASS) in Europe and also investigated its usability in the Nigerian context.

Research Questions
To address the problem identified on MASS by some African educational researchers, the following two questions have been raised for this study: 1. What is the exploratory factor model of the Modified Assessment of Soft Skills Instrument (MOSSAI)?
2. Is the Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI) adaptable to the teaching and assessment methods used in Nigerian Schools?

Methodology
The study was designed as a survey.The population of the study was made up of teaching personnel from both the private and public schools registered by the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), Nigeria.Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in selecting 1,200 respondents for this study.Out of six geo-political zones in Nigeria, four were randomly selected that is, two geopolitical zones each from northern and southern parts.Two states were randomly selected from each of the four geopolitical zones.In each of the states, six schools of both public and private were randomly selected with 25 participants each.Thus, a total of forty-eight schools were used comprising thirty-five (35) technical schools (public) and thirteen (13) private schools with 825 and 375 participants respectively.Thus, there were 683 male teachers and 517 female teachers' altogether.

Instrumentation
Based on the 15-point Measuring and Assessment of Soft Skills (MASS) designed which formed the basis of the study (Appendix I for details), the researchers drafted 63 variables to form the Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI) for the use in Nigeria (See appendix II for details).Section A of the MOSSAI has to do with personal data of the respondents in terms of name of school and gender.The 63 variables formed Section B of the new instrument for this study while Sections C and D focused on methods of teaching and assessing soft skills.

Analysis Procedure
The statistics employed for analysis of the data obtained from Section B of the instrument was Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for validity coupled with Cronbach Alpha for reliability.The initial reliability of the 63 variables was 0.968 which underwent factor analysis process with orthogonal rotation to produce 5-factor model of 50 content areas for final version (See Appendix III for details) The reliability of the final version was 0.961.The names given to the subscales of the 5-factor model with their reliability coefficients are commitment to duty (0.908), attending to responsibilities (0.925), adaptability (0.901), resources management skills (0.801) and motivation (0.791).For Sections C and D of the MOSSAI, mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the responses of the respondents.Data from a mean of 2.5 and above were accepted while others below 2.5 were rejected.

Research Question 1
What is the exploratory factor model of the Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI)?

Discussion
Having considered the basic steps for retaining the reliable factors by means of eigenvalues, amount of total variance, scree plot, residuals and assessment of model fit in the Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI), 11 variables have eigenvalues that exceeded the criterion value of 1.00.The feasibility of at least 70% of the total variability was not attained due to the sample size.However, the total variance accounted for was 51.7%.The Scree Plot at its sharp bent in relation to eigenvalues produced was inspected; the rotated factor matrix yielded a 5-factor result.As a function of factor analysis, the correlation coefficient between observed and reproduced coefficients determines the residual for achieving the fit of the model created by the factors.Due to the enlargement of the table of reproduced coefficient, the footnote produced by SPSS package shows that there are 48 (2.0%) non-redundant residuals with absolute values greater than 0.05.By implication, the model for this study has a good fit.The steps for retaining reliable factors validate Kerlinger et al. [10] and Mertler et al. [11] which stated that only those components (factors) whose eigenvalues are greater than 1 should be retained; they explained further that amount of total variance, the scree plot as well as residual for achieving the model fit are part of the essential factors for consideration.
The identified 5-factor in this study has been interpreted as commitment to duty, attending to responsibilities, adaptability, resources management skills and motivation for clarity and proper identification purposes.

Research Question 2
Is the Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI) adaptable to the teaching and assessment methods used in Nigerian Schools?Table (2a) overleaf depicts the responses of the respondents toward appropriate methods of teaching soft skills in the new instrument.Out of the fourteen perceived methods, only ten were approved by the respondents for this study.In terms of rating, the highest rated method of teaching is the discussion method with a mean of 2.71 and standard deviation of 0.699 while the least rated one is the simulation method which has a mean of 2.50 and standard deviation of 0.625.From Table (2b), out of eleven perceived methods of assessing soft skills, eight were accepted.Practical tests is the most rated assessment method with a mean of 2.59 and standard deviation of 0.598 while the least rated is assignment with a mean of 2.47 and standard deviation of 0.644.
The findings revealed agreement among respondents on certain appropriate teaching and assessment methods for soft skills in the new instrument.Such teaching methods include: discussion, demonstration, interviewing, direct instruction, self discovery, project approach, cooperative learning, questioning, reflection and simulation.To encourage latent traits in an individual for achieving success in life, soft skills require different teaching methods for self-awareness.
In the same vein, assessment methods favoured are practical tests, essay tests, observations, objective tests, questionnaires, rating scales, checklists, and assignments.These assessment methods agree with the studies of Curtis [12] and Kechagias [3] who categorize soft skills assessment methods into standardized assessment (multiple-choice or short-structured items provided for examinees' responses), common assessment tasks (where tasks designed to provide opportunities for examinees to demonstrate and/or develop constructs intended to be assessed), performance assessments types of testing that call for demonstration of understanding and skill in applied, procedural or open-ended settings), teacher/holistic judgment (where thorough, frequent and close observation of the teacher or supervisor is required) and portfolio assessment (where individual examinee is made to select and aggregate the evidence of his own achievement of particular skills).

Conclusions
In this paper, efforts have been made to examine the teachability and examinability of modified soft skills in Nigeria.The results in this study have shown that out of the fifteen identified soft skills by the five European countries, only five are suitable to be taught and examined in Nigerian context.These include commitment to duty, attending to responsibilities, adaptability, resources management skills and motivation.The study was able to identify fifty content areas that could be taught under the five concepts.
Based on the findings, the five soft skills have been proven teachable using such methods like direct instruction, demonstration, discussion, simulation, self discovery, questioning, interviewing, project, cooperative learning and reflection methods.In the same manner, the study revealed that the five-factor already identified can be examined using objective tests, essay tests, practical tests, checklists, questionnaires, rating scales, observations and assignments.Other methods including speed tests, interviews and portfolios are inappropriate and unsuitable for the examination of soft skills in Nigerian school system.

Recommendations
The design and development of Modified Soft Skills Assessment Instrument (MOSSAI) materials on the five teachable and examinable areas are recommended to be given a considerable attention while the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) should design curriculum for the soft skills as a subject covering the fifty content areas identified in this study.Policy makers, school authorities, teachers, stakeholders and the general public should be sensitized on the need to commence teaching and assessing of soft skills in our educational system.Examination bodies in Africa should start thinking of examining/assessing soft skills as part of their examinable subjects.To reduce security threats and stop unnecessary killings in our continent, there is need for the introduction of soft skills in the primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.Following these arrangements, Nigeria and indeed other countries in Sub-Sahara Africa are encouraged to introduce soft skills in their teaching curricular.

Table 1a .
Table Showing the Communalities of the Extracted Factors

Table 1c .
Total Variance Explained

Table 1d .
Table Showing the Rotated Factor Matrix

Table 1e .
Table showing factor loading for rotated factors, eigenvalues and percentage of the five-factor model in new MOSSAITable (1a) presents the Table of Communalities before and after extraction which indicates how much variance in each variable of this study is explained by the analysis.Table (1b) shows Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy.As a measure of factorability, the KMO is 0.965.The Bartlett's Test of Sphericity indicates that the data is probably factorable and it is significant (p < .05).Table (1c) depicts the total variance for factor solution in this study.The table presents the eigenvalues before extraction and after rotation to have sums of squared loadings and rotation sums of squared loadings respectively.In this study, the first eleven factors with eigenvalues is greater than 1 accounted for 51.7%. Figure (1) presents the Scree Plot which is the graph of how the eigenvalues coordinates with the factors.Table (1d) shows rotated factor matrix while Table (1e) presents factor loading for rotated factors, eigenvalues and percentage of the five-factor model in the new instrument (MOSSAI).

Table 2a .
Mean rating and standard deviation of methods of teaching soft skills

Table 2b .
Mean rating and standard deviation of methods of assessing soft skills