The Soft Skills Inventory: Developmental procedures and psychometric analysis

Abstract

When attending and participating in Higher Education, students face a multitude of personal, social, and work-related challenges, which may increase the risk of developing psychopathological symptomatology. To date, there is no instrument that grasps the non-technical skills that may help prepare students to respond to these challenges. This paper presents the development and psychometric properties of the Soft Skills Inventory (SSI). The inventory was developed based on theoretical and empirical findings on the skills associated with academic and professional success, and on students’ perception. The SSI was tested with 2030 Portuguese students (of which 77.1% were female) using a two-stage approach: item calibration and model generation (n = 1033), followed by model validation (n = 997). Item calibration analyses led to retaining 49 items that were organized into six-factors: self-determination, resilience, empathy, assertiveness, social support, and teamwork. This measurement model was further validated and proved to be an invariant, and thus credible, tool to compare male and female students on those relevant skills. All measures attained good internal consistency, with alphas ranging from .76 to .88. Female students scored significantly higher than males on self-determination, empathy, social support and teamwork. On the other hand, male students scored significantly higher on resilience. No significant differences were found between men and women for assertiveness. Psychometric analysis showed that the SSI is a reliable and valid instrument to evaluate students intra and interpersonal skills. The SSI may help identify gaps in soft skills and guide targeted interventions to support a more positive student experience in Higher Education.

The Soft Skills of Special Education Teachers: Evidence from the Literature

“…On soft skills, it should be noted that both the OECD and the European Union consider the development of their transversal skills to be relevant, and this is an area to be taken into account among the priorities of national training policies [33][34][35][36], being valued both in school and in the labor market and in social interaction in general. This relevance is justified by the fact that the degree of development of this type of skills predicts productivity at work, since they complement technical skills [37].…”

“…Thus, we can conclude that the challenges of the teaching career today can be more easily overcome by teachers with soft skills, in addition to the technical skills that are inherent to them. The OECD indicates the importance of teachers developing their transversal competences, and this is an area to be taken into account among the priorities of national training policies [34]. The European Commission, for its part, proposes that, in addition to promoting the development of these competences by teachers, they should also be developed by pupils, since their mastery leads to improvements in the overall teaching and learning process.…”

Developing Transversal Competencies in the Sociodramatic Space: Narrative of a Curricular Experience in Higher Education

“…Within this framework, it is essential that students-future professionals-acquire and develop a set of competencies, generic or transversal, that allow them to respond in active, positive, spontaneous and creative ways to the multiple challenges that they will face throughout their life paths. This would apply to their personal, social, academic and/or professional domains, assuming their learning has engendered them with a critical awareness of their abilities, potential and resources as well as their limits and limitations [8][9][10]. In the professional domain, for example, students must equip themselves with skills that facilitate the process of transition to the labor market and exercise their professional activity, which may encompass diversified functions in different contexts and with interlocutors who vary in characteristics and levels of demand [11].…”

Towards a Global Entrepreneurial Culture: A Systematic Review of the Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Education Programs

“…One of the constituent elements of the EEP is entrepreneurial skills (ES), which enable students to face the challenges of the current labor market, such as the sense of initiative, problem-solving, innovation, creativity, and teamwork. For this reason, several approaches and models of ES have emerged [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. These skills have been progressively included in school curricula, and interventions have been carried out to promote them at all ages.…”