Nur Fatimah Amranنور فاطمة عمران2026-07-272026-07-272026https://studentrepo.iium.edu.my/handle/123456789/34250The ability of learners to use language appropriately, in line with different social situations and cultural norms, is called pragmatic competence, which is considered the cornerstone of any communicative language ability. Despite its importance, pragmatic competence has remained relatively overlooked in research on Arabic language teaching, particularly in university settings, such as Malaysian universities, where Arabic is the not spoken language used in daily life. Understanding the pragmatic difficulties faced by learners in higher education, as well as the impact of teaching strategies on the overall level of pragmatic competence, are topics that deserve investigation. This present study aims to achieve three objectives: identifying the pragmatic difficulties encountered by Arabic language learners in some Malaysian universities, exploring the impact of teaching strategies on developing their competence, and measuring the level of their pragmatic competence performance. This study adopted a descriptive, analytical, and explanatory methodology, and employing two main tools: a Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) based on the Integrated Model of Pragmatic Competence (IMPC), and a questionnaire surveying the views of higher education students. The research sample included 45 final-year undergraduate students majoring in Arabic from three Malaysian universities. The collected data were processed using statistical methods, including reliability tests, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and one-way ANOVA, via Microsoft Excel. The results showed that the students’ overall level of pragmatic competence was moderate, with a mean score of 21.07, standard deviation of 7.10, and a percentage of 70.2%. Although students performed relatively better in directive speech acts (76%), compared to assertive (66.89%) and expressive (66.89%) speech acts, the one-way ANOVA results revealed no statistically significant differences in the level of pragmatic competence among students from the three universities, as the P-value was 0.083, which is higher than the adopted significance level (α = 0.05). The findings also highlighted clear difficulties that students face in applying cultural and social norms during real-life communication, and confirmed a positive relationship between the teaching strategies used and the development of pragmatic competence, underscoring the crucial role of instructional methodology in this area. In light of these findings, this study recommends a clear integration of explicit pragmatic instruction into Arabic language curricula and the adoption of teaching strategies that focus on real-life language contexts, rather than relying solely on implicit learning. It also provides practical insights for developing communicative competence in Malaysian higher education, calling for the use of more pragmatically-aware assessment tools in measuring students’ linguistic skills.arOpen AccessPragmatic Competence; Malaysian Universities; Arabic Language LearnersArabic language -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Foreign speakersCommunicative competence -- Study and teaching (Higher)Master Theses