Steps 1/2 – Q3. What do students think about soft skills?

Metacognitive Knowledge: What students know about soft skills and their importance.

The text below refer to a few Tables, which can be found in the attached file at the end.

1. At the beginning of the workshop introducing soft skills, many students (especially non-native English speakers) did not know what soft and hard skills were. After explaining their definitions, during the brainstorming session (see Table 1), students were finally able to list a few soft skills. I do not think every student wrote them down in Padlet, but overall, I believe they understood what soft skills were. In this workshop, I introduced a list of soft skills and the Soft Skills Passport so they could identify which ones to focus on for the in-class project.
2. Most students decided to focus on 0–2 soft skills at the beginning, but by the end, they acknowledged more soft skills (see Table 4).
3. There are more than eight soft skills students could work on, but the most popular one—time management—was mentioned repeatedly throughout project production.
4. By the end of the term, it is clear that students enumerated many more soft skills (see Tables 4a and 4b). This may be because it is easier to recognise various soft skills only after work begins. It is therefore easier to understand which ones are most important or relevant.
5. Four out of sixteen students did not state any soft skills at the start of the project and are labelled as partially engaging with soft skills (students 10, 14, 15, and 16). However, they were able to enumerate important soft skills they employed and need to develop further by the end (see Table 2). This may be due to the reason mentioned above.
6. In Table 2, it is evident that students were unable to identify soft skills correctly and precisely. They either wrote long phrases to describe one or two soft skills or misidentified them. Sometimes, their definitions were so vague that I found it difficult to determine which soft skills they were referring to. Below are a few examples:
   • Stating problem-solving but it was actually time management.
   • Collaboration and teamwork but it was actually feedback receptiveness.
   • “Tolerance with myself, thus enabling the ability to be patient with my process and learning curve; Anger management.” → This is actually resilience.
   • “Break free from perfectionism and let myself be curious and persistent.” → This seems to be adaptability.
   • “Set milestones/deadlines for each stage to ensure the project progresses on schedule; research skills; time management in terms of pipeline; planning out the real scope of the project; setting better objectives and following a more structured workflow.” → This is actually project management (and not time management), and is more of a hard skill.
   • “It helped me develop the ability to continuously try, analyse, and solve problems when facing challenges.” → This is resilience and problem-solving skills.
   • “I would like to organise my time better when it comes to projects and try my best to visualise and structure my ideas in a better manner.” → These are communication and project management.

Final Answer:

Generally speaking, students know what soft skills are, and the majority (14 out of 16) understand their importance alongside hard skills. However, many students cannot precisely identify them in their activities and work, many mislabel the soft skills they are using, and most were only able to enumerate them at the end of the project. It seems that students are still learning how to identify soft skills in their work.

Metacognitive Regulation: How students plan, monitor, and evaluate their use of soft skills in learning and collaboration.

• Only three students (students 1, 3, and 5 in Table 2) were able to monitor the initial soft skills from start to finish. The rest stated different soft skills at the start and at the end.
• Two students (students 2 and 12 in Table 2) stated which soft skills they wanted to improve at the start but ignored any soft skills development at the end of the project, focusing instead on hard skills. I suspect that as the submission deadline approached, they forgot about the initial soft skills they aimed to improve.
• Students mostly did not plan or monitor their soft skills. Because they tend to procrastinate until the end—when stress kicks in—they mostly “discover” different soft skills they happened to use at the end of the project. It feels more like a box-ticking exercise.
• Students only stated soft skills because it was a requirement for my class project presentations.

  Chart below lists soft skills used by minimum of 3 students. Squared soft skills are related to STEM.
  

Final Answer: their monitoring is still random and inconsistent because they are new to metacognitive regulation strategies for soft skills.