Assessing university students’ community-engaged soft skills in the occupational therapy for school children program

Community service and university volunteerism allow students to gain knowledge and practical skills while also helping those in need. Consequently, occupational therapy students must broaden their scope of practice to include population and community service as preparation for their future careers. However, given the practice for the school-aged population, this article aims to assess university students’ community-engaged soft skills in the ‘Occupational Therapy for School Children’ program. Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Kepala Batas, Pulau Pinang, appointed university students as facilitators for two programs: multi-sensory activities for special needs children from the integrated program, and assessing and educating Form 4 students in the mainstream about sleep quality and disturbance using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. All 29 university students from the Centre for Occupational Therapy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) were asked to fill up a self-reported survey after completing the activities at school. The findings of seven competence levels of soft skills were analyzed. Critical thinking and problemsolving, communication skills, and teamwork skills had the highest competence, with a mean of 4.5 (SD = 0.58). Overall, the ‘Occupational Therapy for School Children’ program achieve the goal in developing and applying soft skills element among university students. It has been demonstrated that the community-engaged program is one of the high-impact programs that can educate students through skill assessments based on performance, meet community needs, and address problems using higher order thinking.