Opportunities for the Development of Soft Skills in Engineer Education

Abstract

In today’s higher education, the development of competencies based on the needs of the labour market, the role of practical training and the application of student-centred teaching methods are becoming more and more important. A particularly important question in engineering education is which abilities and skills are important for an engineer in a rapidly changing, information-based society. Therefore, in addition to hard skills, the development of soft skills also plays an important role. Our research was aimed at mapping the competencies of engineering informatics students and determining development opportunities. The Hungarian version of the Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ) was used to examine the students’ personalities. The results of the research showed that the students’ soft skills must be developed – especially in the areas of openness, communication and cooperation. Students’ personality development can be facilitated by courses that focus on self-knowledge and self-esteem, as well as opportunities for cooperation, adaptation, building trust, empathy, and helpfulness. Cooperative methods, collaborative learning, the project method and problem-based learning can also play an important role in higher education.

Soft skills in engineering education. Practical approach of National Research University “Moscow Power Engineering Institute”

“…For our study, the opinion of the researchers is significant, who believe that the important soft skills of a specialist (engineer) can be considered the critical nature of thinking and activity; readiness to everything new and the ability to navigate in it; communication skills; the ability to find and process information; desire to constantly improve themselves [12][13][14][15][16].…”

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“…Since there is an increasing demand on the labour market for employees to possess several soft skills (Deming 2017), one of the objectives of today's higher education is to emphasize the development of inter-and intra-disciplinary skills in addition to high-level professional knowledge (hard skills) (Holik and Sanda 2021).…”