Teaching Soft Skills in Engineering Education: An European Perspective

Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez*, Mario Manso-Vazquez, Fernando A. Mikic-Fonte, Martin Llamas-Nistal, Manuel J. Fernandez-Iglesias, Hariklia Tsalapatas, Olivier Heidmann, Carlos Vaz De Carvalho, Triinu Jesmin, Jaanus Terasmaa, Lene Tolstrup Sorensen

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

77 Citations (Scopus)
293 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Higher Education engineering students need to be prepared to address sustainable solutions to the complex problems faced in this century. They should become proficient problem solvers, able to work in multidisciplinary teams, ready to adapt to new technologies, and able to acquire new knowledge and skills when needed. Usually known as soft skills, these competences play a key role in Engineering and have being taught in the last two decades, to a greater or lesser extent, using different methodologies and tools. This study reviews the promotion and teaching of soft skills in Higher Education across 5 European countries: Greece, Estonia, Denmark, Portugal and Spain. It provides an overview of best practices on these countries, focusing also on technological solutions to actually enable the development of soft skills. The purpose of this research is to shed some light about how soft skills are being taught presently and the difficulties involved in that process.

Original languageEnglish
Article number9354626
JournalIEEE Access
Volume9
Pages (from-to)29222-29242
Number of pages21
ISSN2169-3536
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 IEEE.

Keywords

  • best practices
  • employability
  • Higher engineering education
  • soft skills

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