1. The Sense of Leadership Among University Students
The Sense of Leadership Among University Students. case of 3rd year LMD students of English (Bejaia) by Mrs Fadhila
National Conference on “Teaching and Learning Civic Education through EFL in Higher Education: Case Studies”
November, 2016

2. Introduction
Traditionally, the mission of universities was mainly to develop students’ skills in a given domain so as to prepare them for future professional careers. However, the role of this institution should be extended to notions of civic education since we believe that the role of educational institutions is also to “produce future leaders, prepare students for citizenry in a global community and foster leadership” (Aston and Aston, 2000). In other terms, preparing future citizens is one of the challenges facing nowadays universities. In this context, King (1997, P87) states that “helping students develop the integrity and strengths of character that prepare them for leadership may be one of the most challenging and important goals of higher education.”

3. The outline Introduction Aims of the study Participants
Tools of research
Main findings
Recommendations
Conclusion

4. Aims of the study
This study at hand, aimed to investigate the sense of leadership among third year students at the department of English, Bejaia University.
The following research questions were addressed in this study:
How do third year students perceive the concept of leadership?
Are third year students involved in the different campus activities?
Does the teaching environment promote leadership development among our students?

5. Research Methodology Participants Tools of Research The participants:
Third year LMD students of English, University of Bejaia
Tools of research:
A questionnaire designed for third year LMD students

6. Description of the questionnaire
The questionnaire is composed of four sections:
Section one determines the profile of our participants.
Section two is directed towards students’ views about leadership in general and the qualities of a leader
Section three investigates the sense of leadership at the university.
Section four is a free space opened to any suggestion from our informants.

7. Findings and discussion
The participants are 105 females and 59 males aged between 18 and 25 years old
According to the participants’ answers a leader is
someone who shares ideas with others
a person who likes to give orders
A person who helps others
Comprehensive
Open minded
For a majority of the participants, 87.20% leaders are not born with innate qualities to lead but these qualities are acquired.

9. For 98.78% of the respondents, there are some qualities a leader must have in order to be successful which are:
Tolerance
Kindness
Respectfulness
Rigorous
Calm
84.15% of third year students do not consider themselves as leaders.
Concerning the students’ participation in the campus life, 88.42% them declared that they do not

10. For those who answered « yes » this is illustrated in the following answers:
Participating in scientific clubs
Helping my mates
Sharing my handouts
Being delegate of my group
For the last question, only 14.02% of the respondents declared that their teachers involve them is discussions about their learning process through the choice of research topics and evaluation methods.

11. Recommendations
Provide students with opportunities for leadership development in curricular and co-curricular areas by:
Curricular areas: through group projects, class presentation, team-based activities etc.
Co-curricular areas: through involvement in different clubs, campus activities, sport club etc.
Create a comfortable environment for students to voice their opinion.
Promote and develop students’ awareness of and respect about other people’s opinion.
Provide students with opportunities to develop significant leadership skills.

12. Conclusion
All in all, the results of the present study revealed that the sense of leadership among third year students needs to be considered. Indeed, a majority of these students is more concerned with individual success rather than life on the campus. Furthermore, the teaching environment does not promote students’ sense of leadership since most of the teachers are more concerned with courses and evaluation rather than exchanging with their students views about leadership or other civic educations issues.
Finally, we have to recognize that promoting values such as leadership will not happen overnight. As a matter of fact, efforts should be made as to foster leadership abilities among university students.