Abstract:
There has been a tremendous increase in the role and importance of cooperative societies particularly among public school teachers. However, the myriad of complaints about the unethical behaviour of the leadership of most societies had hindered the attainment of the service delivery of the Nigeria Union of Teachers’ Cooperative Investment and Credit Unions (NUT CICU) in Oyo State. Previous studies focused largely on the provision of technical knowledge for leaders with little emphasis on the enhancement of their interpersonal (soft) skills. This study was designed, therefore, to determine the effect of Soft Skills Training (SST) on service delivery of NUT CICU in Oyo State, Nigeria. The moderating effects of gender and job tenure were also examined.
The Social and Human Capital theories and the Andragogical Learning Model anchored the study, while the mixed method of survey and pretest-posttest, control group quasi-experimental design of 2x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. The Okebola and Agodi NUT CICU with high membership were purposively selected and randomly assigned to SST and control groups respectively, while their executive members were adopted as participants: SST (Okebola- 60) and control (Agodi- 60). Treatment lasted eight weeks, while the post treatment observation lasted four weeks. Instruments used were Cooperative Society Service Delivery (r=0.85) and Cooperative Leadership Training (r=0.81) questionnaire, SST Inventory (r=0.92) and guide, and non-participant observation. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Analysis of covariance and scheffe post-hoc test at 0.05 level of significance
Participants were classroom teachers (100.0%), married (53.0%) with long job tenures (52.5%) and their mean age was 56±2.9 years. Their pre-treatment soft skills possession was teamwork (54.0%), honesty (48.0%), critical thinking (45.0%), social responsibility and work ethics (40.0%), empathy (36.0%), communication (22.0%), and conflict management and negotiating (20.0%). Treatment had a significant main effect on service delivery of NUT CICU (F(1; 118)=71.76; partial ŋ2=0.38). Participants in the SST had a higher post-mean score (152.72) than those in the control (135.52). Gender had a significant main effect on service delivery of NUT CICU (F(1; 118)=14.20; partial ŋ2=0.11). Male participants had a better post-mean score (148.07) than the female ( =139.14). Job tenure had a significant main effect on service delivery of NUT CICU (F(1; 118)=11.66; partial ŋ2=0.09). Participants with long job tenurehad a higher post-mean score (148.30) than those with short tenure (139.51). There was a significant two-way interaction effect on treatment and job tenure on service delivery of NUT CICU (F(1; 118)=19.19; partial ŋ2=0.14) in favour of participants with long job tenures. The two-way interaction effects of treatment and gender, and gender and job tenure as well as the three-way interaction effect were not significant. Post-treatment observation revealed that there was improvement in oral and written communication, interpersonal relationship, empathy, efficiency and decision-making skills of the leaders.
Soft skills training enhanced the service delivery of Nigeria Union of Teachers’ Cooperative Investment and Credit Unions in Oyo State, Nigeria. The training programme should be regularly provided for the leadership and members of cooperative societies, particularly females and those with short job tenures.
