Drivers Influencing LG120 Students’ Leadership through Community Engagement Activities

Community engagement does not only assist in developing the community but also fosters the students’ growth. In integrating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), the course Community Engagement for Professional Development (ELS303) focuses on collaborative competency which is believed to consequently cultivate multiple soft skills including leadership. Following Shared Leadership Theory, students may be accountable for different responsibilities and roles that are not necessarily a leader but they take ownership and honour these responsibilities. Although community engagement has been studied for decades, investigations on the students’ leadership skills remain lacking. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the drivers influencing language students’ leadership through community engagement activities. In achieving this, data will be collected quantitatively and qualitatively through questionnaire distributed to 80 final year language students who are taking ELS303 course and qualitatively through semi-structured interview with 10 respondents from the same group. The quantitative data will then be analysed using SPSS to look for patterns and trends whereas thematic analysis for the qualitative data will be done using NVivo. The findings will benefit curriculum developers and educators to maximise collaboration competency in students which subsequently supports the integration of ESD.

community engagement, shared leadership, collaborative competency

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