The Effect of Soft Skills and Internship Experience on Student Work Readiness through Work Motivation as A Mediating Variable: A Study on Students of the Da'wah Management Study Program, Faculty of Da'wah And Communication, UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effects of soft skills and internship experience on students’ work readiness, with work motivation serving as a mediating variable. The study was conducted at the Faculty of Da’wah and Communication, UIN Ar-Raniry. The sample comprises 394 active students who are part of the Da'wah Management Study Program between 2018 and 2022. The sample size is calculated through multiplication of the number of indicators (22 indicators) by seven, thus producing 154 respondents. The data was gathered through the use of questionnaires distributed to the respondents. The results reveal that work readiness is strongly affected by soft skills, internships and motivation to work. Soft skills and internships play a strong role in increasing students' motivation to work. Additionally, the findings from the mediation analysis show that work motivation partially mediates the relationship between soft skills and internship experience and work readiness. The current study makes a valuable contribution to the research on work readiness among students by incorporating soft skills and internship experience as antecedent factors while considering work motivation as the mediator, which is quite a rare phenomenon in the field of Islamic higher education in Indonesia, especially Da’wah Management programs.