Assessing the Soft Skills Needs of Teacher Education Students

Abstract

The current study was undertaken to assess the soft skills needs of student teachers at Kuwait University, which led to the authors developing a two-part Likert-type questionnaire. The first part covered 49 soft skills categorized into five skills dimensions: employability, study, social, self-control, and problem-solving. The second part included five different approaches to acquiring soft skills. The results reveal that the medium-high level of need among the respondents for all 49 soft skills and their preference for all 5 acquisition approaches. These findings in the Kuwaiti context correspond to those of similar studies conducted in different locations, which indicates geographical consistency in the soft skills needs of college students. It is thus recommended that future research should focus on investigating the most effective approaches to acquiring soft skills. Contribution/Originality: The current study's primary contribution is revealing that the real need among college students for acquiring the required soft skills. In addition, the consistency between the results this and similar studies in other countries can inform future research into college and teacher education.

Soft Skills of American University Teachers: Self-Concept

“…ability to promote good interactions and intercommunication with their students, and among them. However, it has been found that teachers have an average level of sociability and empathy with their students [26]. Therefore, teachers feel a great need for training in the soft skills that are fundamental for developing their work in the classroom [27].…”

“…Among the soft skills, the ability to stimulate critical thinking, creativity, and leadership are also highly valued [25] and, among others, are the ability to foster collaborative teamwork, the ability to promote good interactions and intercommunication with their students, and among them. However, it has been found that teachers have an average level of sociability and empathy with their students [26]. Therefore, teachers feel a great need for training in the soft skills that are fundamental for developing their work in the classroom [27].…”

Teachers' Soft Skills: a scoping review of definitions, examples, methods and findings

“…Referring to the journal Quartile in SJR and/or JCR, the majority of the articles were published in Quartile 4 (AlHouli & Al-Khayatt, 2020;Elisa et al, 2020;Gendron, 2017;Hamilton, 2018;Noah & Aziz, 2020;Suprianto et al, 2018;Susilawati et al, 2020) and Quartile 2 (Abd Hamid et al, 2020;Hadiyanto et al 2017;Gero & Mano-Israeli, 2020;Rabaglietti et al 2021;Tang, 2020;Vourinen et al, 2021) journals; 4 articles were published in Quartile 3 (Harun & Salamuddin, 2013;Hendriana, 2017;Kniaz & Chukhno, 2021;Susilawati et al, 2021), and 2 articles in Quartile 1 journals (Iglesias-Pradas et al, 2015;Skura & Świderska, 2021). It must be noted that while the majority of the journals were indexed in Education, Psychology, and related areas (Special Need Education, Educational Psychology), 3 journals were indexed in the specific scientific area of teachers' expertise (in two cases Physics and in one case Applied Linguistics).…”

“…Eight articles focus on perceptions about the importance of SS and their development in teacher education programs. While the importance of SS is generally recognized and pre-service teachers tend to have a positive evaluation of their own SS (Hadiyanto et al 2017;Kniaz & Chukno, 2021), there are differences in opinion about the relative importance of concrete aspects of SS to the teacher profession (Hamilton, 2018;Tang, 2020), the contribution they make (Susilawati et al 2020) and in the evaluation of the teacher education programs regarding SS (AlHouli & Al-Khayatt, 2020;Kniaz & Chukno, 2021;Noah & Aziz, 2020). Factors such as knowledge area (Tang, 2020) and role (teacher and students; Gero & Mano-Israeli, 2020) seem to be important to understand these differences of opinion.…”

Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills for Health and Education Professionals: A Scoping Review

“…There is a global shift in higher education to ensure graduates come out with necessary hard skills, as well as being readily employable. A number of the reviewed articles mentioned either national or global reference to competency, employability, or 21 st century skill standards (Abu Kasim et al, 2014;AlHouli & Al-Khayatt, 2020;Bastos et al, 2019;Bergh et al, 2006;Cham et al, 2020;Gonzalez et al, 2013;Jardim et al, 2020;Mailool et al, 2020;Maren et al, 2021;Meiners & Wisdom, 2020;Morrell et al, 2020;Ngang et al, 2015;Nor et al, 2011;Schutt et al, 2017;Sharma et al, 2021;Singh et al, 2017;Treem Guerin, 2014).…”