Background: Soft skills and the need for their development have been discussed across industries for many years, predominantly in engineering, hospitality, and IT sectors. The importance of soft skills to career success has been well-documented, but gaps exist on how to teach them. Inter-industry variability and a lack of consensus in identifying and defining important soft skills adds to the problem. New research in teaching soft skills needs to be formally incorporated into training curricula, especially within healthcare and education sectors. This scoping review will answer these research questions: How are soft skills conceptualised, taught and assessed in healthcare and higher education?   Methods/Design: A search of health, education, and social science databases will be conducted including peer-reviewed and grey literature. Data will be extracted using a combination of the PRISMA ScR and PAGER framework. Analysis will be carried out utilising the PAGER framework and will yield descriptive summaries. Discussion: The review will collate literature on teaching and assessing soft skills in healthcare and higher education. It will map evidence in relation to current practices and research, gaps, evidence for practice, and research recommendations. The findings will be discussed in the full Scoping Review along with implications for teaching.

Soft skills are a collection of abilities instrumental to one being a successful professional. Soft skills are knowing why, what, when, and where to perform specific technical, hard skills. Traditionally, universities and other professional training providers have focused on teaching hard skills, relying on graduates to learn necessary soft skills on the job or through personal experiences. With more professional training requiring tertiary education and less work experience, a skills gap has developed between labour markets and professional training providers. A scoping review was conducted to answer two research questions: How are soft skills conceptualised and taught to health and education professionals? How are soft skills assessed for health and education professionals? The PAGER framework was utilised to present and synthesise the scoping review results. Eight themes emerged from the patterning analysis and data synthesis: Lack of definitions of soft skills; What soft skills are taught; Methods of teaching soft skills; Curriculum: Embedded vs. stand-alone courses; Use of digital tools; Assessment of soft skills; Variation of assessment tools; Limited regard for cultural competency, diversity, equality, and inclusion. These themes are discussed in relation to advances, gaps, evidence for practice, and research recommendations.