Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates

Youth are important assets for the continuous development of a nation. Therefore, many youth development programmes have been conducted to help youth to develop. Positive youth development, an approach that emphasizes the positive aspects of youth development is based on developing their health and...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Yee, Wendy Mei Tien
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/1/IPSS_2008_2a.pdf
_version_ 1848840099473653760
author Yee, Wendy Mei Tien
author_facet Yee, Wendy Mei Tien
author_sort Yee, Wendy Mei Tien
building UPM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Youth are important assets for the continuous development of a nation. Therefore, many youth development programmes have been conducted to help youth to develop. Positive youth development, an approach that emphasizes the positive aspects of youth development is based on developing their health and physical competence, personal and social competence, cognitive and creative competence, vocational competence and citizenship competence. Having these competencies are very essential especially among youth living in a multi-ethnic society, Malaysia. Therefore, to avoid conflict, there is a need to be tolerant towards different cultural, religious practices, beliefs and ethnic differences. Despite many initiatives taken by the government to ensure such positive development among the youth, inter ethnic conflict is still an issue especially with the outbreak of the Kampung Medan incident in 2001 where most of the culprits involved were youth. Thus, the focus of this study is to identify the levels of youth development competencies among the undergraduates in Malaysia. Besides, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior the occurrence of a specific behavior of a person can be predicted with the presence of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intentions. Incorporating both the theory of positive youth development and Theory of Planned Behavior, this study also aimed to determine the potential predictors for perceived inter ethnic tolerant behavior and to determine the level of inter-ethnic tolerance among the undergraduates. Using a self administered questionnaire, data were collected from 1086 undergraduates. Analysis was conducted to compare between undergraduates from the Public (PuIHE) and Private Institution of Higher Learning (PrIHE) and from five different programs of studies; namely, Bioscience, Social Science, Business Studies, Technical Studies and Information Technology Studies. The results indicated that students from both the institution of higher learning and across the five programs of study have the highest level of strength in vocational competence. In order to determine the predictor variables for inter ethnic tolerant behavior, a four predictors multiple linear regression model was used. The findings of this study indicated that there was a difference in prediction variables for inter-ethnic tolerant behavior between the PuIHE and PrIHE undergraduates. The results also indicated that not all the youth development competencies explained significantly to inter ethnic tolerant behavior (IETB) among students from the different programs of studies. However, among all the four youth development competencies, cognitive competence was the strongest estimator of inter ethnic tolerant behavior for the four out of five different programs of study. Overall, the model developed for this study based on the two main theories; youth development competencies and Theory of Planned Behavior on the prediction of behavior, was able to explain the gap in predicting inter ethnic tolerant behaviors among the youth.
first_indexed 2025-11-15T07:21:57Z
format Thesis
id upm-5438
institution Universiti Putra Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
English
last_indexed 2025-11-15T07:21:57Z
publishDate 2008
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling upm-54382013-05-27T07:22:49Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/ Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates Yee, Wendy Mei Tien Youth are important assets for the continuous development of a nation. Therefore, many youth development programmes have been conducted to help youth to develop. Positive youth development, an approach that emphasizes the positive aspects of youth development is based on developing their health and physical competence, personal and social competence, cognitive and creative competence, vocational competence and citizenship competence. Having these competencies are very essential especially among youth living in a multi-ethnic society, Malaysia. Therefore, to avoid conflict, there is a need to be tolerant towards different cultural, religious practices, beliefs and ethnic differences. Despite many initiatives taken by the government to ensure such positive development among the youth, inter ethnic conflict is still an issue especially with the outbreak of the Kampung Medan incident in 2001 where most of the culprits involved were youth. Thus, the focus of this study is to identify the levels of youth development competencies among the undergraduates in Malaysia. Besides, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior the occurrence of a specific behavior of a person can be predicted with the presence of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and behavioral intentions. Incorporating both the theory of positive youth development and Theory of Planned Behavior, this study also aimed to determine the potential predictors for perceived inter ethnic tolerant behavior and to determine the level of inter-ethnic tolerance among the undergraduates. Using a self administered questionnaire, data were collected from 1086 undergraduates. Analysis was conducted to compare between undergraduates from the Public (PuIHE) and Private Institution of Higher Learning (PrIHE) and from five different programs of studies; namely, Bioscience, Social Science, Business Studies, Technical Studies and Information Technology Studies. The results indicated that students from both the institution of higher learning and across the five programs of study have the highest level of strength in vocational competence. In order to determine the predictor variables for inter ethnic tolerant behavior, a four predictors multiple linear regression model was used. The findings of this study indicated that there was a difference in prediction variables for inter-ethnic tolerant behavior between the PuIHE and PrIHE undergraduates. The results also indicated that not all the youth development competencies explained significantly to inter ethnic tolerant behavior (IETB) among students from the different programs of studies. However, among all the four youth development competencies, cognitive competence was the strongest estimator of inter ethnic tolerant behavior for the four out of five different programs of study. Overall, the model developed for this study based on the two main theories; youth development competencies and Theory of Planned Behavior on the prediction of behavior, was able to explain the gap in predicting inter ethnic tolerant behaviors among the youth. 2008 Thesis NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/1/IPSS_2008_2a.pdf Yee, Wendy Mei Tien (2008) Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates. PhD thesis, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Youth development English
spellingShingle Youth development
Yee, Wendy Mei Tien
Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title_full Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title_fullStr Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title_full_unstemmed Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title_short Youth Development Competencies as Predictors of Perceived Inter-Ethnic Tolerant Behaviors among Undergraduates
title_sort youth development competencies as predictors of perceived inter-ethnic tolerant behaviors among undergraduates
topic Youth development
url http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/
http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/5438/1/IPSS_2008_2a.pdf