Affective learning levels and perceived soft skills Acquisition in Tourism and hospitality training In Nairobi county, Kenya

Abstract

While the tourism and hospitality industry requires a highly skilled and adaptable workforce, many graduates lack the necessary soft skills for workplace success. Existing research has primarily focused on technical competencies, leaving a gap in understanding how affective learning encompassing emotions, attitudes, and values contributes to soft skills acquisition. Additionally, limited studies have explored this relationship within the context of selected tourism and hospitality training institutions in Nairobi County, Kenya. This study assessed the levels of affective learning and acquisition of soft skills in tourism and hospitality training of diploma programs offered in institutions in Nairobi County. Specifically, the study assessed receiving, responding, valuing, organizing and characterizing levels of affective domain of the Blooms Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, and their effect on perceived acquisition of soft skills. The study, anchored on the humanistic theory of learning and the social constructivism learning theory, adopted an exploratory sequential mixed method design and pragmatism philosophy. The study targeted 822 male and female diploma trainees in their 2 nd and 3 rd years of study, and 41 trainers all drawn from 5 institutions in Nairobi County. Purposive sampling was used to select 12 trainers for the qualitative phase and a combination of stratified and simple random sampling technique was used to identify 262 trainees for the quantitative phase. Qualitative data were collected using an interview guide while quantitative data used a questionnaire. Qualitative data were analyzed using Taguette, a user-friendly tool for qualitative data analysis, while quantitative data were analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The qualitative results from trainers revealed that receiving, responding, valuing, organizing and characterizing levels, each amplifying several elements are emphasized in the tourism and hospitality diploma programs. The PLS-SEM results revealed that responding level (β=0.819, p<0.001), receiving level (β=0.224, p<0.001) and valuing level (β=0.106, p<0.001) were positive and significant predictors of trainees’ perceived acquisition of soft skills. The characterizing level (β=-0.105, p<0.001) had a negative though significant effect, while the organizing level (β=0.002, p>0.05) had a positive but non-significant effect on perceived acquisition of soft skills. The contribution of affective learning was 99.2% for receiving, 98.6% responding and 50.1% valuing, while organizing and characterizing contributed 46.7% and 54.3% respectively. The study concludes that receiving, responding, and valuing significantly contribute to soft skills acquisition, characterizing had a negative effect while organizing had no significant impact. This study therefore, provides empirical evidence on the significance of effective learning levels in developing soft skills within tourism and hospitality education. These insights contribute to the enhancement of training methodologies and the shaping of policies that promote more affective learning strategies, ultimately improving graduate preparedness for the demands of the tourism and hospitality industry. Policy makers, educational stakeholders, and hospitality stakeholders should take cognizance of attributes inherent in these levels, including openness to experience, active participation, accepting the worth of, value integration and value prioritization among others, to develop enabling policy guidelines for affective learning in tourism and hospitality training. The study further recommends that industry practitioners need to collaborate with training institutions to offer opportunities for trainees to get exposure to industry work environment through work- based learning activities. These real-life experiences foster an engaging learning environment that reinforce application of organizing and characterizing, which are higher order levels of affective learning thus significantly contributing to the development of soft skills.