Reliability Analysis of IR4.0 Skills and Technical Skills on Career Adaptability among Home Science Students.

Abstract

This study examines a research project titled Reliability Analysis of IR4.0 Skills and Technical Skills on Career Adaptability among Malaysian Home Economic Students. The main focus of the study is to evaluate the reliability of a questionnaire instrument developed to measure three main constructs: IR4.0 skills, technical skills, and career adaptability. The instrument consists of four main sections: Section A (demographic information), Section B (IR4.0 skills), Section C (technical skills), and Section D (career adaptability skills). To ensure both content validity and face validity of the instrument, a review was conducted by three experts, two in the field of fashion design and one language expert. Improvements were made to sentence structure, terminology selection, and item relevance based on their feedback to ensure alignment with the constructs being measured. A pilot study was then conducted involving 33 Form 4 and Form 5 students from the Home Science stream at SMK Dato Haji Kamaruddin, who were also involved in clothing construction lessons. The findings revealed that the overall Cronbach’s Alpha value for the items was 0.987, indicating a very high level of reliability. According to Tavakol and Dennick (2011), a high Cronbach’s Alpha value reflects strong internal consistency in measuring the same construct. They also noted that this value is influenced by the number of items and the sample size; a higher number of items directly related to the construct increases the likelihood of obtaining a stable Alpha value. Therefore, the instrument is considered valid and reliable for use in the main study. This research is expected to contribute to the enhancement of the TVET curriculum to be more aligned with current industry demands and the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.