Soft skills, do we know what we are talking about?

Marín-Zapata, Sara Isabel; Román-Calderón, Juan Pablo; Robledo-Ardila, Cristina; Jaramillo-Serna, Maria Alejandra

doi:10.1007/s11846-021-00474-9

Cited by 50 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 142 publications

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“…Virtually every review about Soft Skills points out the conceptual variability and the methodological limitations of the existing literature (e.g. Fernandes et al 2021, Marin-Zapata et al, 2021, Scheerens et al 2020, Touloumakos, 2020. This is not the exception.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The context of usage of these terms, inside and outside academia, is very ample: politics, education, business, psychology, human resources, economics, and more. Conceptually, multiple and often incompatible definitions coexist with discourses that use some of these expressions without definition (Hurrell, Scholarios & Thompson, 2013;Marin-Zapata et al, 2021). Also, an analysis of Google Trends shows the existence of geographic differences in the popularity of terms (Google Trends, 2021).…”

Section: Disperse Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From the opposite perspective, the SS movement is criticized because of many methodological and theoretical problems (Scheerens et al 2020). However, despite its critics, many reviews of academic literature agree in the growing interest in the topic; despite its apologists, those same reviews tend to highlight the scarcity of rigorous evidence (Fernandes, Jardim, & Lopes 2021;Marin-Zapata et al 2021;Neely, 2021;Maturro, Raschetti & Fontán, 2019;Mishra & Sahoo, 2021;Touloumakos, 2020).…”

Section: Soft Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studying teachers' SS with rigor implies to have a systematic approach to the precedent studies definitions, methods and findings. While there are reviews of conceptualization in other areas of knowledge (Marin-Zapata et al, 2021), and general reviews in special education teachers' SS (Fernandes et al 2021) there is not a scoping review of teachers' SS. Considering this, a review of Teachers' Soft Skills literature was conducted with focus on the definitions, methods and results.…”

Section: Teachers' Soft Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To synthesize the extracted data, the methods of recent reviews with similar approaches (Fernandes et al, 2021;Marin-Zapata et al, 2021) were adapted, as well as general guidelines (Peters et al 2015;Tricco et al 2018). Text mining and content analysis procedures were used.…”

Section: Data Extraction Analysis and Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Manchini¹,

Jiménez²,

Diaz³

2022

Preprint

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Background. Teachers' Soft Skills (SS) appears as a promising but problematic research area, being conceptual and methodological dispersion one of the main difficulties. Objectives. A Scoping Review was conducted, aiming to identify quantitative literature focused on teachers' SS, and synthesize the definitions, examples, methods and instruments used to approach them, as well as their main results. Methods. Online databases and reference searching were used to identify publications. Three coders select the studies based on prefixed criteria (authors use the term SS, focus on SS, teachers or pre-service teachers as population, quantitative or mixed design, published in indexed journals, written in English or Spanish). The data-chart form used captures definitions, examples, design, sample size, instruments, results, as well as other relevant data. Synthesis was carried out using descriptive statistics, content analysis and text mining techniques. Results. 19 studies published between 2012 and 2021 meet the inclusion criteria. A significant portion did not provide an explicit definition of SS; when they do, they emphasize their “personal” and “social” nature and oppose them to Hard Skills. From the 51 different examples provided, only 5 (communication, team work, critical thinking, problem solving and learning) were present in at least 5 articles. While there were experimental and quasi-experimental approaches, the vast majority used observational cross-sectional design, with sample sizes ranging from 13 to 1366 subjects. The use of ad hoc instruments is more frequent than the use of standardized or adapted instruments. Results showed promising correlations and outcomes of interventions; however, methodological limitations impose prudence in the interpretation. Conclusion. The literature shows no consensus on definitions and approaches to teachers' SS. Future research faces the challenge to explicitly define them and develop standardized methods to measure them and assess their impact.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Disperse Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Soft Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Teachers' Soft Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Extraction Analysis and Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Manchini¹,

Jiménez²,

Diaz³

2022

Preprint

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Competence-Based Support for Project-Based Learning in Virtual Settings

Mikhridinova

Ngereja

Hussein

et al. 2023

Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

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Project-based learning in higher education becomes more relevant and job-field-related if it is done in real, or at least realistic, project settings, e.g. including specific team situations or case studies from companies. Such projects are specifically valuable if they are conducted by internationally mixed student teams, best case in interdisciplinary teams. Online participation can be both more realistic and helpful in case physical mobility is not possible. Therefore, we are conducting virtual projects with cross-border student teams. Selecting the right projects and matching the right students with the relevant company cases is very important for an effective and efficient competence delivery. The project selection based on the desired competence gain, the development of a meaningful sequence of projects in order to implement an individual competence development path, the estimation of the contribution of the projects to the desired competence profile of the student, and the implementation of the projects need to be supported by digital tools and a virtual environment. This allows access to projects and company cases from different countries and an international, cross-border learning experience -best case in realistic interdisciplinary teams. This paper describes the concepts and tools for this approach and their experimental analysis.

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