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THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS IN TECHNICAL EDUCATION

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 7th International Scientific and Expert Conference TEAM 2015
Technique, Education, Agriculture & Management
Belgrade, October 15-16, 2015

THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFT SKILLS IN TECHNICAL

EDUCATION
Danijela Pezer
Department of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Faculty in Slavonski Brod, University of
Osijek, Croatia,
dpezer@sfsb.hr

Abstract
Today, the global market requires, besides develo-
ped technical skills, development of soft skills,
which became a core skills of engineers in the
team-based environments. Study programs facing
the challenge, how in the most creative and inno-
vative way (with regard to the 21st century),
prepare the future mechanical engineers for the
labor market. The paper gives a brief overview of
the difference between the technical (hard) and
non-technical (soft) skills, the importance of emo-
tional intelligence in business, and the develop-
ment of soft skills in technical environment.
Keywords: Soft skills, hard skills, technical
education, emotional intelligence, teamwork
1. Introduction
In order to successfully cope with demands of
today's society, from the individual is expected to
adopt and develop a wide variety of competences
that allow him to rapid adaptation to new social and
professional requirements. The rapid development
of technology and globalization processes make
demands for the development of those competen-
ces of individuals that will provide them individual
success, but also contribute to the success of soci-
ety in general. If you want to be recognized in the
competitive environment, it is necessary to possess
2. Soft skills vs. hard skills
Hard skills are technical procedures which are
easy to observe, quantify and measure, while soft
skills provides a holistic approach for technical
education. Hard skills are skills acquired by learning
and through the practical work, while soft skills
including interaction with other people. Soft skills is
much harder to measure (evaluate) and it is more
difficult to acquire, but once acquired, significantly
facilitate the application of the hard skills in practice.
Soft skills, as opposed to hard skills related to the
professional knowledge acquired with education,
are developing through the constant self-develop-
ment and are applicable in various fields of life. For
improving the soft skills it is necessary to manage of
motivation/self-motivation, develop and improve per-
sonal efficiency when performing tasks and achie-
ving the objectives, develop methods and techni-
ques to improve working methods and the effecti-
veness of the time using, adopt the methods and
communicating techniques and presentation skills,
understand the importance of stress management,
daily and in business life, improve negotiation skills
and the basics of teamwork.
Examples of hard skills include [1]:
ƒ proficiency in a foreign language
ƒ a degree or certificate
ƒ typing speed (writing, reading)
ƒ measuring and calculating

ƒ analyzing data
skills that will make you stand out from other candi-

ƒ machine operation
dates. These skills are called soft skills, and are

ƒ ability to use software programs (computer

necessary for quality management of our own busi-
ness and personal development. Exactly these
skills, employers estimate as a core skills, and when programming).
Examples of soft skills include [2]:
ƒ effective written and oral communications
hiring, these particular skills can be crucial when

ƒ critical thinking
selecting person who would complement, and well

ƒ information management skill and life-long

incorporate in their business environment. Emplo-
yers believe that soft skills are highly desirable qua-
learning
ƒ problem solving and decision making
lities of employees for effective business interaction

ƒ leadership skills
among co-workers, and if you do not possess of

ƒ teamwork skills
these skills (regardless of the acquired professional

ƒ ethical behaviour.
knowledge), they consider that the presentation of
your hard skills may not be adequate. Soft skills
creates the new possibilities and opportunities of Figure 1, [3], shows a comparison of the hard
career improving, because today is necessary rise and soft skills.
not only as a specialist but also as a person.

D. Pezer 75
 7th International Scientific and Expert Conference TEAM 2015
Technique, Education, Agriculture & Management
Belgrade, October 15-16, 2015

Figure 1. Representation of soft and hard skills

3. Emotional intelligence According to [4], emotional intelligence can be

divided into four quadrants based on the model
Emotional intelligence towards [4], is a set of
with a total of 18 competencies. Studies show that
emotional skills which allow us to choosing the
leaders should have a high level of competence in
correct manner of use feelings and unconscious ins-
six core areas in order to be effective (Table 1).
tinctive mechanisms to interact with other people as
The six core areas for leadership and most
well as the understanding of yourself. This type of
critical aspects of emotional intelligence are:
ƒ Emotional Self Awareness
intelligence involves knowledge of what you feel and
ƒ Accurate Self Assessment
use your own feelings to make good life decisions,
ƒ Self Confidence
and represents the ability of good management
ƒ Emotional Self Control
moods and the urge control based on the aware-
ƒ Empathy
ness of our own feelings in the moment of events.
ƒ Influencing Others.
The basic components of emotional intelligence are:
ƒ recognizing (the ability to recognize your own
emotional state), 4. Soft skills in technical education
ƒ using (knowing how to motivate yourself to create
Due to the competition of global markets, soft
your best performance),
ƒ understanding (sense the emotions in others),
skills no longer just nice to have, but it is necessa-
ƒ emotion managing (develop productive relation-
ry to have, and development of the same skills
sets more like imperative to engineers, because
ship with other people).
that skills are contributing to a more successful
For achieving the business success, ahead of
business. Universities are mostly focused on
conventional intelligence, priority is given to organi-
teaching professional information prior than soft
zations (companies, institutions) directed to emo-
skills such as creativity, problem solving, personal
tional intelligence, while significantly reducing the
communication, writing and the ability to speak.
time required for product development and placing
Students generally learn how to become an
it on the market, if there is a built emotional com-
engineer, and less focus is on the soft skills.
petence in development teams. It also contributes
Without soft skills, each graduate engineer is
to increased productivity, better quality innovation
faced with too many problems in their professional
and return on investment through new strategies
life, because he can't communicate effectively,
and technologies.
team work and solve problems – thus, students
Companies for that reason, require not only a
should acquire soft skills prior that they graduate.
professional and competent people, but also those
The term, social interaction in heterogeneous
who have the emotional maturity to successfully
groups [5] refers to an individual's ability to coope-
cope with the complexities, ambiguities, uncertain-
rate with others and well-managed relationships for
ties, risks and variety of modern times, and those
personal well-being but also for the establishment
who know how to motivate and keep the other
of new forms of cooperation. This competence
talented people.
shares common features with the so-called "social
It is important to emphasize that emotional
competence", "social skills" or "soft skills".
intelligence is a skill that can be developed.

76 The Importance of Soft Skills in Technical Education

 7th International Scientific and Expert Conference TEAM 2015
Technique, Education, Agriculture & Management
Belgrade, October 15-16, 2015

Table 1. Daniel Goleman's 4 quadrant model of emotional intelligence

SELF AWARENESS SOCIAL AWARENESS
Emotional Self Awareness Empathy
Accurate Self Assessment Organizational Awareness
Self Confidence Service Orientation
SELF MANAGEMENT RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Emotional Self Control Influencing others
Transparency Developing others
Adaptability Inspirational Leadership
Achievement Orientation Conflict Management
Initiative Teamwork/Collaboration
Optimism Change Catalyst

The social competence is possible and thus
necessary to develop in the framework of educa-
tion. According to [4], social competence is part of
emotional intelligence, and includes knowledge
and reflect on their own feelings in making good
decisions in life, but also the skills of persuasion
and leadership of others, and the ability of non-
violent conflict resolution. Although sharing some
common features, it is necessary to distinguish the
social competence of the social skills.
The skills comprise specific behaviors of indivi-
duals (e.g. tolerance, nonviolent conflict resolution,
constructive communication), while competence is
determined by the way of the individual uses of
skills in a social environment. We can say that the
individual is socially competent if using social skills
in an appropriate manner and at the same time suc-
cessfully achieving a crucial personal objectives, [5].
Students can acquire soft skills through the
extracurricular activities such as sports activities
where they learn about being a team responsibility
and adapting, volunteer work that helps improve
communication skills and work ethic (not work for
money), art that develops creativity and teaches
the effective use of time and available resources,
international and domestic travel that enhance
planning skills and so on [6].
Students are the adults, built persons, and as
such are, they enrolling the study and come with
some embedded behavior patterns, and thus more
difficult accept the changes related to their beha-
vior. On the development of soft skills therefore
should commence at the earliest age of a child's
life, when it is a natural to adopt some certain be-
havior that is now popularly called soft skills, of
course, adapted to the current age, and upgrade
the same throughout their schooling. It is very im-
portant to every child/person watch as an indivi-
dual and remain in compliance with its personality.
Soft skills are the skills which can be mastered,
and even in later years, but many times it's forget
that this is a process that takes time. These are
skills that can not be adopted overnight, but should
be built gradually and naturally, in real situations,
at real problems. How much is a parental effort
(and constant repetition) children need to adopt the
habits of good behavior and what is most important
- to know how to apply it at the right time.
Soft skills will help students in a lot of the situations
that will face them in the working environment.
According to [7], there are 29 soft skills which are
most frequently cited in scientific papers as crucial:
1. Communication (oral and written)
2. Analytical and problem solving
3. Team player
4. Team work
5. Management skills
6. Interpersonal (presentation, listening,
negotiation skills)
7. Innovative and creative
8. Self-learning
9. Open and adaptive
10. Leadership
11. Organizational
12. Planning
13. Ability to work under independently
14. Fast learning
15. Critical thinking
16. Work under pressure
17. Decision making
18. Design above functional level
19. Shared beliefs and trust
20. Emotional intelligence
21. Commitment
22. Research
23. Concern with quality
24. Cross-cultural skills
25. Legal skills
26. Awareness skills
27. Language skills (written communication)
28. Ethical, political, and economical skills
29. Outsourced management skills.
In the top are the communication skills, and
problem solving skills as well as teamwork. The
term, teamwork, refers to work in a team composed
of competent people who possess the knowledge
necessary to achieve the defined objective, where
each person is responsible for the activities defined
by the project, respects the creative ideas of other
coworkers without inappropriate behavior, because
the ultimate goal should be for all participants the
same - a quality job done.
Group/team work should be more present in the
process of education of future engineers (must be
taken to ensure that the groups/teams are consis-
ting of students with equal competences and per-

D. Pezer 77
 7th International Scientific and Expert Conference TEAM 2015
Technique, Education, Agriculture & Management
Belgrade, October 15-16, 2015
sonalities that do not happen that individuals who
"stand out" must take all the work and responsibility
while others are "spared" and equally receive a
merits - this is not a healthy working atmosphere
and is usually frustrating and demotivating for those
who do all the work).
Students, especially at graduate studies, should
be more involved in smaller projects (in which they
can participate based on already acquired profes-
sional knowledge in order to feel useful and with
faith that they really up to the task - otherwise it can
only lead to a drop in self-esteem and thus to a
motivation decrease, and ultimately giving up, as for
the labor market can mean the loss of inventive
people if they are not handled in the right way -
individual) because that is the best way to prepare
them for the labor market, which nowadays is really
demanding.
Each student should be present at each lecture
and participate in discussions (pay special attention
to involved those who shy, withdrawn). Teaching
jobs, in addition to being pedagogically oriented, is
complex because it requires psychologists knowled-
ge and knowing how to access to any of the stu-
dents at individual manner (prefer to work in smaller
groups). In the classroom should be reign friendly
atmosphere, not the fear (which does not mean that
the interaction between the students and the
teacher should be at the level of peers). Students
should recognize that the teacher is there for them
and their future and the future of all of us that we
prosper as a society if we develop young creative
people of them, which we will leave the future, not
for the reason of intimidation to show the hierarchy
or because someone believe that is the way to
achieve respect - counterproductive. Teachers, first
of all should be consistent (not easy, but it is worth),
stick to the agreement, and to be honest with his
students, in order to develop mutual trust.
Students should enable presentation of their
works, not only through individual courses, presen-
ting in a classroom in front of their generational
colleagues, but also through the public tribunes,
meetings, conferences (one of the example who
has been successfully implemented for 9 years con-
secutive, at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty in
Slavonski Brod, the event, called Mechanical chal-
lenge in cooperation with industry, where students
have the opportunity to present their work to a wider
audience, which is good for the growth of their self-
esteem and development of soft skills).
Students ultimately should be referred in what
that awaits them in a job interview, appropriate
dress manner (dress code), self-presentation, gene-
rally a way of communicating in order to understand
general rules of business life, on time.
Lifelong learning as the name suggests, never
stops, and refers among other things to research
the topics of interest, the ability to acquire know-
ledge and its application, understanding of new
78 The Importance of Soft Skills in Technical Education
materials, learning from personal experience [8].
There can be classified and associations such as
the Alumni club, which brings together all the
graduates (engineers) of certain institutions with the
aim to connect and share experiences and prob-
lems, whose members should be include more
(through invited lectures, panel discussions) to work
with students to create a true picture of the "outside
world", and about what awaits them after their
graduation, the importance of lifelong learning and
to prepare them at professional life.
Students should enable the conditions for the
acquisition of soft skills, motivating them and putting
in front of challenges, in which they will solve the
given problems using the same skills.
The importance of soft skills can be presented to
students on the real-world examples that are directly
related to their field of study, noting that teams that
work well, provide a more effective technical solu-
tions at customer satisfaction.
5. Conclusion
In modern society is increasingly coming to the
fore the importance of successful interaction with
others and the establishment of high-quality profes-
sional and personal relationships. Therefore, when
trying to define basic competencies to be developed
during obligatory education (not only technical edu-
cation), social competence is recognized as one of
the core.
Activities that promote effective communication
soft skills in technical education may not be availab-
le to a greater extent in today's programs, but sup-
port for these skills is essential in building the labor
force of the future. With changes from somewhere
need to start, the best of ourselves. The teachers
are an example for our students, and when the
students hiring, in some way they send out a picture
of faculty which are attended and the way how we
treated to them in the five years spent together. We
wish that our students ultimately be even better
(more mature, more responsible, more self-aware,
amicable) than when they came to our institution.
Therefore, the primary objective of the curriculum
of technical education to prepare engineers for the
labor market of the 21st century, where except
specific professional knowledge, requires the pos-
session of soft skills in order to be ready for the
challenges that await them in a competitive global
work environment.
Changes should not be afraid, especially those
which lead to improving, success.
6. References
[1] A. Doyle, “The Difference Between Hard Skills and
Soft Skills”, [Online]. Available:
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/skills/qt/hard-soft-
skills.htm. [Accessed: 10-Aug-2015].
[2] “ Hard Skills and Soft Skills that Will Get
You Employed”, [Online]. Available:
 7th International Scientific and Expert Conference TEAM 2015
Technique, Education, Agriculture & Management
Belgrade, October 15-16, 2015

https://jeanbelmonte.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/te
chnical-skills-that-employers-seek/. [Accessed: 10-
Aug-2015].
[3] E.C. Cancino, “Soft skills: Methods for teaching and
assessment”, [Online]. Available:
http://www.slideshare.net/edwineiou/soft-skills-
methods-of-teaching-and-assessment. [Accessed:
10-Aug-2015].
[4] D. Goleman, “Emocionalna inteligencija”, Mozaik
knjiga, Zagreb, 1995.
[5] M. Markuš, “Socijalna kompetentnost – jedna od
NOMXþQLKkompetencija”, Napredak, no. 151 (3 - 4),
p. 432 – 444, 2010.
[6] M. Arat, “Acquiring soft skills at University”, Journal
of educational and instructional studies in the
world, vol. 4, no.3, p. 46 – 51, August, 2014.
[7] S. Naiem, M.M. Abdellatif, S.E. Salama,
“Evaluation of Computer Science and Software
Engineering Undergraduate's soft Skills in Egypt
from Student's Perspective”, Computer and
Information Science, vol. 8, no.1, p. 36 – 53,
January, 2015.
[8] T.J. Vasko, M. Al-Masoud, P. F. Baumann,
“Assessment of soft-skills-program learning
outcomes using engineering courses”, Proceedings
of American Society for Engineering Education,
Annual Conference, AC 2011 – 1173, 2011.

D. Pezer 79

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