Soft skills and universal competencies: relationship of concepts, structure and assessment

Abstract

The task of a modern higher education institution is to form graduates’ competencies that contribute to the construction of a flexible professional path in today’s continuously changing society. Success in solving these problems is provided by the presence of university graduates of the so-called universal competencies (according to FSES 3++), reflected in the ability to think systematically, critically assess the situation and possible resources for solving the problem, the ability to cooperate and self-organize. In foreign educational practice, these competencies are known as “flexible” competencies or “soft” skills. The article aims to disclose the concepts of “soft skills” and “universal competencies” in a meaningful way, to correlate their structures and summarize the experience of soft skills and universal competencies assessment in Russian and foreign practice. Research methods include: theoretical analysis on different approaches to the interpretation of the concepts of “soft skills” and “universal competence”; structural-content and comparative analyses that allow us to identify the common and special in the content and structure of these concepts; summarizing the experience of assessing “soft” skills and universal competencies, which provides an opportunity to identify best practices for diagnosing these skills and competencies. The result of the study is seen in the presentation of tools for assessing the universal competence of university students and the development of recommendations for its application in practice. It is concluded that it is necessary to organize procedures for diagnosing the development of universal competencies of students at different stages of learning in higher education. The scientific novelty of the study is to enrich the ideas of the competence approach with the knowledge of the general and specific in the content and structure of “soft” skills and universal competencies, the peculiarities of their evaluation. Practical significance is seen in the possibility of using the materials of the article for further research; study the dynamics of the development of universal competencies; development of training materials for students of professional development courses.