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The Journal of Technology in Student Affairs


Summer 2011 Edition  [home]



Technologically Capable Armed Forces: Attributes of Graduates of the National Defense University of Malaysia

Dr Jowati binti Juhary
Centre for Liberal and Language Studies
Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia
(National Defense University of Malaysia)
Sungai Besi Camp 57000, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
jowati@upnm.edu.my

Introduction
Technology plays an important role in today’s lifestyles. In education, technology is facilitating both teachers and students in the teaching and learning processes. Further, technology in education has been in existence for more than four decades. In the 1970s, television was a popular medium of technology in education. Today, scholars talk of digital technologies or Web 2.0 such as e-learning, simulations, blogs, Wikipedia and the like. This paper is a conceptual paper that investigates the use of technology in the first defense university in Malaysia. The main question asked is how the university utilizes new technologies to improve the capabilities of its graduates. Capabilities in this sense refer to the Graduate Student Attributes.

The National Defense University of Malaysia (NDUM) is the 20th public higher learning institution in Malaysia. It is an elite, unique, and boutique university since it caters to a very specific future employer, the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF). The university started as a military academy in 1995, and in 2006, this academy was upgraded to a university. The first batch of the NDUM graduates was awarded their degrees and conferred their military ranks of Captain and equivalent in October 2010. That is why this paper presents only the concepts of how technology could assist in order for future graduates to acquire graduate student attributes.

Because this is a conceptual paper, the methodology used were observations at the NDUM on how the students are trained to attain the graduate attributes and how technology has helped the process. The observations involved activities in classrooms that the author taught, students’ activities on the fields, formal and official students’ activities such as mess or regimental nights, Friday prayers and students’ parades. Further, documents such as speeches and strategic planning papers were also used to provide the guidelines for achieving the graduates’ attributes.

This paper has four main sections including this introduction. The second section discusses the importance of technology in military institutions and the literature on technology in education. At the same time, the general Graduate Student Attributes will also be analysed in the second section. The third section examines the observations at the NDUM; this section acts as the findings and analysis section of the paper. The last section closes the paper with conclusions and recommendations for future undertaking.

Literature on New Technologies and Graduates Students’ Attributes
Between the years 1990 to 2005, most organizations including military institutions have come to a realization that technology can play a huge role in many facets of today’s life. For example, the MAF, Australian Defense Force (ADF) and the U.S. military have grabbed the opportunities by actively engaging in new technologies development.

In August 2002, the MAF started its e-learning program with the first virtual university in Malaysia, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR). This program caters to in-service personnel who are either sent by the MAF or who themselves applied for the program. Upon completion of their studies, they will be awarded undergraduate degrees by UNITAR. It is critical to mention that the practice of e-learning at UNITAR for part-time personnel is a blended one; they still have to attend face-to-face sessions at least for a few hours per semester depending on the faculties’ requirement. By embarking on this program, the MAF has acknowledged that e-learning can help its personnel to advance their careers by improving their academic qualifications. The rest of the MAF’s efforts for e-learning go to its educational institutions namely the Royal Military College (RMC) and single service colleges. The RMC, for instance, uses e-learning to support its face-to-face sessions, and the single service colleges use e-learning to help military trainees hone their mastery of skills. It is interesting to note that the university, when it was previously known as a military academy, was not given the task to adapt e-learning. There is no opportunity to explore this issue here; rather the decision now is that the NDUM would like to utilize new technologies to enhance the teaching and learning process.

Online learning programs have been widely used in Australian military institutions and colleges during the last 14 years. For example, e-learning initiatives were reinforced when the ADF formed an e-Learning Panel of Providers in 1998 to select the best providers and courseware to be used by the ADF. This panel represented a key component of an initiative that will support one of the largest e-learning systems ever to be implemented in Australia (“Catalyst Interactive Helps,” 2004). As part of the initiative, Defense Online Management and Instructional Network (DOMAIN) will be developed. DOMAIN is expected to reduce the time spent in learning and training and enhance the availability of many learning and training courses in the ADF (“Catalyst Interactive Helps,” 2004). It has also been suggested that commercially-available war games used by the ADF were growing significantly due to the need for modeling and simulation support and scarce alternative teaching resources (Carpenter & White, 2005). As commercial games are accessible and cheap, they have been frequently used to teach military personnel about the history of military and war tactics. These games also provide a useful supplement to conventional live training in the ADF (Morrison et al., 2005). Therefore, the ADF is continuously trying to find the best Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) computer games by evaluating them for the purposes of using them as tools for the learning and training of its personnel. In this way the ADF seeks to also contain the costs of developing new Information Communication Technology (ICT) training materials and also the costs of in-field military exercises.

The story is different for the U.S. military. In the early 1990s, the U.S. military began to transform its educational programs at all levels through the application of ICT. These technologies include stand-alone multimedia CD-ROMs or networked materials. Before this transformation of learning strategies, the traditional method of face-to-face teaching was used. It was the face-to-face teaching approach that saw the rise of the U.S military power after WWII. Nonetheless, the capacity of e-learning to prepare reservists in a timely manner was a primary motive behind the changes that stressed the need for training to be feasible at anytime and anywhere (TRADOC, 2001). In fact, the U.S. military has always been a global trendsetter with most learning initiatives, including e-learning (Rosenberg, 2001). This is hardly a surprising characteristic given the nature of the military-industrial complex that has increasingly defined the U.S. economy in the post-WWII era (Johnson, 2004). Rigorous training had been the hallmark of the U.S. military and it has historically always depended on highly trained personnel. According to a report by Staples (2003), e-learning has proven to be an effective training tool for the U.S. military.

The relation between military organizations and new technologies seems strong. What about the link between education and technology? In actual fact, both have strong connections too. For instance, since Schank’s (1997) work in the late 1990s, other researchers have commented on the different values of new technologies in the learning environment. For Prensky (2001), having fun was less important than the capacity of students to easily absorb new information through digital technologies. When students were given the choices to learn with new technologies, they assumed more responsibility for their learning and thus became more active participants. For Dzuiban et al. (2006), bringing digital technologies into the classrooms reduced boredom for a generation brought up on the internet and video games. These students, known as Digital Natives or Net Gen students (or Net Generation), born after about 1981, found other forms of learning, including television and computers. These frequently offered more active intellectual stimulus than lecture-based teaching. Such students may therefore have problems with old-fashioned learning approaches that tended to give a privileged position to the teacher as the source of knowledge and wisdom that had to be imparted to relatively passive students. According to Tastle, White and Shackleton (2005), digital technologies compelled teachers to keep up with the students’ command of technology. All these technological pressures on the classrooms from the outside world were, according to Laurillard (1993), Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) and Bonk and Dennen (2005), moving the general learning environment into a direction that focused increasingly on the students’ active engagement with learning rather than a fixed quantum of curriculum. Students were also receiving information about the world from outside formal schooling. The older training approaches were increasingly superseded; new technologies, they argued, undermined the authority of ‘old-fashioned’ teachers.

The above literature on technology and its importance to the military institutions are irrelevant if the NDUM fails to incorporate the Graduate Student Attributes proposed by the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (MOHE) in its curriculum. Introduced in 2006, these special attributes are seen as the answers to the issues of graduates’ lack of marketability. There are nine attributes as required for all Malaysian graduates. They are explained as per below.
  1. Knowledge – graduates must be knowledgeable and this knowledge must go beyond what they learn in classrooms. This suggests that a wider exposure through extra co-curricular activities could further enhance graduates’ knowledge.
  2. Technical/Practical/Psychomotor Skills – graduates must be able to demonstrate their abilities to use these skills in their daily life.
  3. Thinking and Scientific Competency – graduates must be able to think ‘outside the box’ in facing the challenges of this century. At the same time, they must also be able to give scientific reasoning for problems that arise.
  4. Communication Skills – graduates must be able to carry and present themselves confidently. They must also be able to speak and deliver ideas; synthesize and defend opinions and articulate their thoughts effectively.
  5. Social Responsibility and Competency – graduates must be able to ‘blend’ themselves in society. Apart from understanding how society functions, they must be able to take responsibilities given by society and be accountable for their actions.
  6. Professionalism, Values, Attitudes and Ethics – graduates must demonstrate professionalism at all time; practice positive values and attitudes and posses a high ethics in all undertakings.
  7. Lifelong Learning and Information Management – graduates must embrace the concept of lifelong learning and at the same time, they must be able to search, store, retrieve and use appropriate information when needed. This is where ICT plays a critical role and graduates must be comfortable using it.
  8. Management and Entrepreneurship Skills – graduates must be able to manage their time, resources and most importantly, graduates must not only rely on securing jobs at companies, firms or industry. They must be comfortable to take charge and start to become entrepreneurs themselves.
  9. Leadership Competency – graduates must demonstrate their ability to lead; most importantly to lead themselves rather than others. This is critical because without leadership skills to lead oneself, personal values such as self discipline and self esteem would be absent.
The NDUM has embedded these attributes in its curriculum across the university. Notwithstanding this, it is found that the future graduates of the NDUM should be categorized differently simply because they are tailored to specific requirements by their parent services. These NDUM graduate attributes define what these graduates represent. The next section discusses this in detail.

The NDUM Graduate Attributes
Because technology appears to support every aspect of humans’ life, how does technology play its role in achieving Graduate Student Attributes? This section attempts to answer this question. Reflecting on the general Graduate Student Attributes outlined by the MOHE, the NDUM feels strongly that the attributes of the NDUM’s graduates should be ‘slightly’ different. Therefore, in many of the second Vice Chancellor’s speeches, he has outlined six suggested attributes for the NDUM graduates to attain: graduate officers, commissioned officers, sportsmen/women, masters of an unarmed combat, Imams/Khatibs, and gentlemen/ ladies. This section examines the six attributes by listing them, together with the observations on how these attributes are supported by technology at the NDUM.

The First Attribute – Graduate Officers
This attribute is the most important attribute because it is one of the two main reasons why students attend tertiary education at the NDUM. Knowledge as well as thinking and scientific competency from the general student attributes by the MOHE are amalgamated to create this attribute. In order to increase military professionalism, academic qualification is a must. Sarkesian (1981) argues that consistent academic achievement leads to educated officers who are the foundation of military professionalism. By academic achievement, this author further argues that students must be comfortable in their quest for knowledge at the university.

The Use of Technology – At the NDUM, new technologies such as e-learning and simulations are at its infancy. The university obtained its Learning Management System in 2009, and at present, content development for courses is in progress. Nonetheless, there is one academic program that could be the internal technological leader, which is, the Maritime Technology Program. This program uses Computer-Based Training (CBT) Laboratories and a Ship Simulator to train its students in various core courses.

One may wonder why this program could have ‘secured’ the use of technology earlier than the rest of the academic programs at the NDUM. The answer is rather obvious: The NDUM’s failure to shift into new learning technologies reflects the lack of pressure from the parent services or international organizations – the kind of pressures that resulted in the introduction of the Maritime Technology Program, because in order for the graduates of this program to be allowed to navigate naval ships, they must first be trained in the simulator and achieve a certain level of competency. Only then can they proceed on board a ship.

The Second Attribute – Commissioned Officers
The graduates of the NDUM must obtain their academic degrees first before they can be commissioned to Captains or equivalent. It is expected that once graduates have obtained their academic degrees, they will be commissioned military officers. The training for becoming military officers at the NDUM is divided into three phases and these will be explained together with the use of technology next.

The Use of Technology – Three phases of military training at the NDUM are the Induction Phase or ‘Tunas Wira,’ General Military Training and Single Service Training. The use of technology is apparent in the last two phases of military training. For the Induction Phase, the utilization of technology is zero. This is because this phase is a physical phase where new cadets are transformed from boys to men. Marching, parading and other stamina and discipline builder activities dominate. On the other hand, the General Military Training and Single Service Training will use technology to the maximum. Activities such as 3-D simulator trainings will dominate. Tactical and strategic levels of training employ a lot of technology. At the same time, communication training on battlefields, for example, requires the students to understand the principles of digital technologies. However, it needs to be highlighted that these two phases are conducted outside of the NDUM; the students will be trained at military camps based on their military services. Therefore, the management of the university may want to revisit the use of technology for military training on campus since it could benefit the students. This, together with more use of technology in more academic programs at the NDUM will be the next challenge of the young university.

The Third Attribute – Sportsmen/women
The graduating students of the NDUM must master one type of sports. The university accommodates this by scheduling from 5.00 to 6.30 p.m. as physical activity slots from Monday to Thursday. Students are allowed to choose whether they want to join a group or individual sports. They are not only mastering the sports physically, but more importantly they are trained to understand the history, rules and strategies behind the chosen sports. The measure of this mastery is the certificate given to students that authorize them to be sports coaches or umpires.

The Use of Technology – Unfortunately for this attribute, little use of technology is employed. This is because as most of the hours allocated for these activities are spent on the fields, students get to ‘do the real thing’ hands-on. At this rate, their mistakes may be costly since they may not be able to anticipate them. Unlike the use of sports simulations, where players can learn without fatal consequences, students have to learn the hard way in mastering the sports of their choice.

The Fourth Attribute – Masters of an Unarmed Combat
In military institutions, unarmed combats mean that personnel must be able to demonstrate the ability to defend themselves without the assistance of any weapons. Therefore, graduates of the NDUM are also required to obtain black belts for Taekwondo. Every Friday from 3:00 to 6:30 p.m., they will be trained by qualified taekwondo coaches. Since students enter the NDUM at different levels of this martial art, they will be divided into groups based on the results of their placement test.

The Use of Technology - Similar to the third attribute, the use of technology for this attribute is non existence. The live demonstrations by the trainers are of the utmost importance for the students to master taekwondo. Although at times, the trainers have their theory sessions by using slide presentations and CD-ROM demonstrations, the hours for these are only about 10 percent of the total learning hours for taekwondo.

The Fifth Attribute – Imams/Khatibs
The Muslim male students of the NDUM must exit the university with a qualification as Imam and Khatibs. This training is a huge responsibility, because the university must train about 85 percent of the students’ population in this aspect of leading prayers and reading sermons, because the defense university has only 15 percent female students. Thus, the Military Training Academy of the NDUM has arranged for all final year students to be given the roles and task as Imams for all prayers, as well as Khatibs for Friday prayers. The rationale behind this arrangement is simple, but yet very crucial. Should the future Captains be given the responsibilities to lead a platoon, they must be able to lead the ‘spiritual’ aspect for the members of the platoon as well. Thus, they must be effective leaders of the prayers, as much as effective leaders in the battlefields.

For the Muslim female students, they are required to understand all aspects of becoming good Muslim leaders too. The Non-Muslim students are not neglected; they are expected to attend churches or temples. As future leaders of the military institutions, all students must believe in God and practice good moral values. This attribute is in line with two general values listed by the MOHE namely values, attitudes and ethics as well as leadership competency.

The Use of Technology – As any other normal theory sessions at the NDUM, the use of technology in lecture presentations is currently lacking. Notwithstanding this, the case is different with Friday sermons. At the NDUM, the delivery of Friday sermons by Khatibs has been enhanced by using power point slides. Whatever is being read by Khatibs is now displayed on the white screens. Readings in Arabic are translated on the screens to Malay or English language. Key points from the sermons are also shown on the screens. This familiarity with technology allows future defenders of the nation to become more confident in all aspects of their lives.

It needs to be emphasized that the content of the sermons are not prepared by the students. Rather, the contents are given by the Religious Office, Kuala Lumpur. The only thing controlled by the NDUM is the way Khatibs deliver the sermons. This compulsory exercise gives good exposure and experience to students since it is practical in nature, and at the same time, it boosts the confidence of the students.

The Sixth Attribute – Officers and Gentlemen/Ladies
This last attribute is the most difficult and complex attribute to be achieved by the graduates of the NDUM. It encompasses several general attributes listed by the MOHE such as communication skills, technical/practical/psychomotor skills, social responsibility and competency, thinking and scientific skills, professionalism, lifelong learning and leadership competency.

The training for this begins as early as their first minute of enrolling at the university. Students are exposed to the ethics in the dining hall, socialising and the like.

One may wonder why this is a difficult attribute to acquire. Trained as defenders to a country, the values that these students carry may conflict with becoming gentlemen or ladies. These students must ensure that they are able to assess what is required of them. The most important thing is they must have positive ego; this is something that could be mistaken for arrogance.

The NDUM wants to ensure that graduates are capable of making wise decisions on their own. The gaps that the management is trying to fill are whether students are able to assimilate the motto of the university, which is ‘Duty, Honour, Integrity’ anytime, anyplace. This suggests that given some freedom allocated to the students in their daily timetable, are they going to spend the time wisely and responsibly? This is something that could not be discerned at this stage.

The Use of Technology – Although new technologies could have a lot of potential in many facets of students’ life, little technology is used to achieve this attribute. It is reasonable to assume that students need real life role models in order for them to achieve this attribute. This could be supplied by appropriate numbers of military officers on campus that could lead the students in terms of life as military personnel.

Conclusion
Students should be well prepared to enter a world that is greatly influenced by technology. By introducing them to the appropriate technologies at the NDUM, the graduating cadets would be more confident in their skills base. Thompson and Bieger (2006) also stress that students need to be able to succeed in a competitive environment so as to progress both during and after their studies; exposure to new technologies during their student years gives them a competitive edge.

However, not all attributes of the NDUM graduates are supported by technology currently. Certainly, the lack of technological support for this could be contributed by two reasons. First, the management is still grappling to find the best way to integrate technology into activities and programmes that support the attributes or maybe, the management finds that the best approach for the students to acquire the attributes is by not using technology, at all. It appears that the concept of blending the approaches to academic teaching and learning could be well replicated in achieving the attributes of the NDUM graduates.

To conclude, the philosophy of the NDUM which highlights on producing prominent intellectual leaders of characters is not only critical but it must also be achieved. As the first batch of the NDUM’s graduates makes its entrance to the real world last October, the stakeholders such as the MAF and society are now assessing whether the NDUM has succeeded in equipping its graduates with the NDUM graduate attributes, which are unique to the university. Future research must then take up these assessments and feedback for further improvement of the learning environment at the NDUM.

References

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Carpenter, R. & White, C. (2005). Computer games in the Australian Department of Defence. In SimTect 2005 Conference Proceedings, Sydney Australia, 11-13 May, SIMTECT, Sydney, 397-404.

Catalyst Interactive provides e-Learning Solution to Australian Defence Force. (2004). Media Release of Catalyst Interactive, 18 November http://www.catalystinteractive.com.au (accessed 22 August 2007).

Catalyst Interactive helps drive Australian Defence Force’s most ambitious e-Learning initiative to Date. (2004), Media Release of Catalyst Interactive, 18 August http://www.catalystinteractive.com.au (accessed 22 August 2007).

Dzuiban, C., Hartman, J., Juge, F., Moskal, P., & Sorg, S. (2006). Blended learning enters the mainstream. In Bonk, C. J. & Graham, C. R. (Eds.). The handbook of blended learning: Global perspectives, local designs (pp. 195-208). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

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Laurillard, D. (1993). Rethinking university teaching: A framework for the effective use of educational technology. London: Routledge.

Morrison, P., Barlow, M., Bethel, G., & Clothier, S. (2005, May). Proficient soldier to skilled gamer: Training for COTS success. In SimTect 2005 Conference Proceedings, Sydney Australia, SIMTECT, Sydney, 91-96.

Oblinger, D. G., & Oblinger, J. L. (2005). Introduction. In Oblinger, D. G. & Oblinger, J. L. (Eds.). Educating the Net generation. Boulder, CO: Educause.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw Hill.

Rosenberg, M.J. (2001). e-Learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the Digital Age. New York: McGraw Hill.

Sarkesian, S. C. (1981). Beyond the battlefield: The new military professionalism. New York: Pergamon Press.

Schank, R. (1997). Virtual learning: A revolutionary approach to building a highly skilled workforce. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Staples, M. (2003). Three countries to direct military e-learning. CTC-G3 Training Development Cell: e-Learning Symposium. Canada, 5-6 February.

Strategic planning documents, National Defence University of Malaysia. (2009). Kuala Lumpur: Corporate Affairs, National Defence University of Malaysia.

Tastle, W.J., White, B. A., & Shackleton, P. (2005). e-Learning in higher education: The challenge, effort and return on investment. International Journal on e-Learning, 4(2), 241-251.

Thompson, C., & Bieger, G. (2006). Technology in education: “what” or “how?” Academic Exchange Quarterly, 10(2), 121-125.

TRADOC. (2001). The army distance learning programme. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, VA.



The on-line magazine about technology and Student Affairs

Gary D. Malaney
Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst
Editor

Stuart Brown
StudentAffairs.com
Executive Editor

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