Building Soft Skills for Employability

Challenges and Practices in Vietnam

Tran Le Huu Nghia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000652338
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

This book is among the first of its kind to comprehensively examine the implementation of soft skills in universities in the developing country, Vietnam. The context is unique as the implementation is taking place within the distinctive socio-economic, cultural and political characteristics of the country, amidst several simultaneously-executed educational reforms.

Tran lays down the foundation for discussion by providing readers with a comprehensive review of how soft skills implementation has come into existence in higher education across the globe, before diving into the implementation of soft skills in Vietnamese universities. He goes on to highlight the interesting differences in the conceptualization of soft skills between Vietnamese universities and those in the West.

The book depicts and compares how university leaders and managers tackle contextual factors, submit to constraints enforced by political forces, and how they use institutional advantages available for implementation. It goes further to examine how personal and contextual factors affect teachers' and students' engagement with the implementation, and highlights the role of work-integrated learning and extra-curricular activities in developing soft skills for students. Finally, the book investigates the contribution of external stakeholders, such as alumni, employers, skills experts, and local authorities, to the implementation and obstacles that prevent their participation.

This book will be a valuable reference for the implementation of soft skills in higher education around the world.

1 The surge in developing soft skills for students in higher education

Up to now, we have known that soft skills are an important component of graduate employability. Before going further, it is important to understand what soft skills are, their nature and components. This will enable us to understand the various ways to implement soft skills in higher-education institutions across the globe.

What are soft skills?

It is not easy to have a consensus on a definition of soft skills, since these skills are conceptualized differently between disciplines, contexts, and countries (see Table 1.1). For example, in Australian HE, this set of skills is often referred to as “generic graduate attributes,” “generic skills,” “key competencies,” “soft skills,” and “employability skills.” They are known as “key skills” or “core skills” in the UK; “essential skills” in New Zealand; or “necessary skills,” and “workplace know-how” in the USA (Bowman, 2010; Hager & Holland, 2006). In Vietnam, these skills are referred to as “soft skills” (kỹ năng mềm) or “life skills” (kỹ năng sống). In this book, the term “soft skills” will be used as it is a common term in the literature of different disciplines and in Vietnam, the main context of this book.

Table 1.1 Terms referring to soft skills in some countries (Bowman, 2010; Cinque, 2016)

Countries	Equivalent names for soft skills
Australia	Generic graduate attributes, generic skills, key competencies, employability skills
UK	Key skills, core skills, life skills, key transferable skills, cross competencies
USA	Necessary skills, workplace know-how
New Zealand	Essential skills
Germany	Schlüsselkompetenzen (key competencies), Übergreifende kompetenzen (general competencies)
Denmark	Nøglekompetence (key competencies)
France	Compétences transversales (transversal competencies)
Spain	Competencias genéricas (general competencies)
Vietnam	Kỹ năng sống (life skills), kỹ năng mềm (soft skills)

Associated with different terms are a variety of definitions for soft skills. Some authors view soft skills in relation to whether these skills are innate abilities and are skeptical about whether students can be trained in them. For example, Heckman and Kautz (2012) define soft skills as personality traits, goals, motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labor market, in school, and in many other domains. Knight (2007) defines soft skills as wicked competences; others consider these skills as emotional intelligence (see Kyllonen, 2013; OECD, 2015) or non-cognitive skills, such as perseverance, sociability, and self-esteem (Heckman & Rubinstein, 2001). Non-cognitive skills and emotional skills have been found to “influence numerous measures of social outcomes, including better health, improved subjective well-being and reduced odds of engaging in conduct problems” (OECD, 2015, p. 3). Yet in reality, “soft skills include both social/interpersonal skills and […] the capacity to work on competences, to reframe and transfer them from one field to another, even from informal to formal learning” (Cinque, 2016, p. 394).

Some organizations define soft skills from administrative and management viewpoints, distinguishing soft skills from the remainder of learning outcomes of a certain level of education. For example, using the terms “generic graduate attributes,” the Higher Education Council of Australia defined soft skills as “the skills, personal attributes and values which should be acquired by all graduates, regardless of their discipline or field of study” (Treleaven & Voola, 2008, p. 20). Likewise, Bowden et al. (2000) defined generic graduate attributes as:

… the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution. These attributes include but go beyond the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most university courses. They are qualities that also prepare graduates as agents of social good in an unknown future … (as cited in S. C. Barrie, 2007, p. 440).

In most cases, soft skills are defined in relation to technical skills. Technical skills are “those skills acquired through training and education or learned on the job and are specific to each work setting” while soft skills are “the cluster of personality traits, social graces, language skills, friendliness, and optimism that mark each one of us to varying degrees” (Litecky, Arnett, & Prabhakar, 2004, p. 69). Robles (2012) contrasted hard skills with soft skills, in which the former is the technical expertise and knowledge needed for a job, whereas the latter includes interpersonal skills and personal attributes. Davis and Muir (2004, p. 96) defined:

… soft skills are attitudes and behaviors displayed in interactions among individuals that affect the outcomes of such encounters. These differ from hard skills, which are the technical knowledge and abilities required to perform specific job-related tasks more formally stated in job descriptions. (p. 96)

More conceptually, Weber, Finley, Crawford, and Rivera Jr (2009, p. 356) point out that soft skills are “interpersonal, human, people or behavioural skills needed to apply technical skills and knowledge in the workplace.” Echoing this viewpoint, Laker and Powell (2011, p. 112) view soft skills as “intra-personal skills such as one’s ability to manage oneself as well as interpersonal skills such as how one handles one’s interactions with others.”

It is also noted that some organizations or authors do not provide a concrete definition of soft skills but rather provide a list of examples of such skills for free interpretation. For example, the Malaysian Institute of Higher Learning interprets soft skills as non-academic skills such as communication, critical-thinking and problem-solving, leadership, teamwork, entrepreneurship skills, ethics and professional morals (Shakir, 2009). Mitchell, Skinner, and White (2010) consider that soft skills include leadership, self-management, conflict resolution, communication, emotional intelligence, and so on. Hager and Holland (2006) further explain that soft skills mostly cluster around human activities such as communication and working with each other, gathering and ordering information, and problem-solving (p. 2). They are seen as capable of enhancing work effectiveness, especially regarding the rapidly evolving and interconnected world we are living in now.

With the myriad terms used to refer to soft skills, as well as differences in the perspectives of researchers and governmental bodies, it is little wonder there has been a lack of consensus in coming up with a definition. Nevertheless, the importance of developing soft skills in HE as one way to enhance graduates’ employability is acknowledged by all. Regardless of the availability of a definition of soft skills, it may not be applicable to the Vietnamese HE context, where some different terms have been used to refer to soft skills, albeit without any concrete definitions. Therefore, in this book, soft skills are defined broadly as non-disciplinary skills that may be achieved through learning and be applied in study, work, and life contexts. This definition allows some space to include various conceptualizations of soft skills, which could significantly influence their implementation.

Nature of soft skills

Understanding the nature of soft skills is vital for the successful implementation of these skills in a HE context. Despite there being few studies on the nature of soft skills, it seems that there is a consensus in this respect. Soft skills are found to be elusive, discipline-relating, and transferable between contexts. They cluster and complement each other. They require substantial time and practice to grow to a level where they can be used naturally.

Firstly, these skills are elusive. People have talked a lot about these skills and their importance in the modern workplace as well as in personal life. However, when it comes to providing a clear description of what they are, it is not easy at all (Knight, 2007). That partly explains why there are several definitions of soft skills, as reported above. People of different fields of study may describe these skills differently depending on which stance they hold. If they are more related to social values, they would consider these skills in terms of social benefits. Conversely, if people are business-oriented, they would view these skills in terms of socioeconomic gain. This will be further illustrated by the cases of the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe project (Tuning) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) project below. The elusive nature of soft skills causes many difficulties for the execution of soft skills policy in HE, as stakeholders do not have a consensus on what they should teach, as well as how to teach and assess these sorts of skills.

Secondly, despite the term “generic skills” used to denote soft skills, these skills are discipline-related in the sense that the importance and balance of these skills varies across disciplines (Barrie, Hughes, Smith, & Thomson, 2009; Jones, 2010). For example, written communication skills for students in social sciences may not be as technical and terminological as those for students in engineering. Communication and interpersonal skills are vital for journalism students, but they are less important for biotechnology students who spend most of their time working in the lab. This implies that soft skills should be taught within the disciplinary context. However, in practice, many prefer to treat soft skills as “generic” across disciplines and contexts of application possibly to ease the management of the implementation process. This may result in ineffective implementation of soft skills in educational contexts.

Thirdly, soft skills are transferable between learning and work contexts (Bridges, 1993; Hind, 1994). This characteristic reflects well the term “generic skills” in that in every learning and work context, these skills can be found. Once we master a soft skill within a particular setting, we can use it again in a different setting. For example, an IT technician can transfer problem-solving skills learned from his or her role in a bank to a textile manufacturer because most tasks would deal with computers and similar issues. However, in order to transfer these skills between the two work settings, he or she would need some time to adapt the skills to fit in with the “content” of a new work setting and focus. The problem-solving skills are the same, but the “material” on which these skills are applied is different, so they need modification. This characteristic of soft skills suggests that when developing these skills for students, activities need to be diverse so that they can flexibly practice these skills. This would enhance their ability to transfer soft skills across different work settings.

Fourthly, existing research suggests that soft skills exist as clusters of different but complementary skills which dynamically combine with each other differently in different contexts (Bowman, 2010; Gonczi, 2006; Hager & Holland, 2006; Tuning Educational Structures in Europe, 2019). Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how a businessperson can communicate effectively to his or her clients without interpersonal skills. Likewise, teamwork may not achieve expected outcomes if team members fail to communicate with each other to discuss, negotiate, and agree on solutions to solve the problems facing them. Problem-solving ability will not suffice if it does not involve critical thinking and/or creativity. This suggests that soft skills should not be imparted skill by skill; they must be taught and assessed together rather than by single skills, preferably within the context of a discipline (Ang, D’Alessandro, & Winzar, 2014).

Finally, soft skills take a great deal of time to develop, even one’s entire life (Knight, 2007). That is why many soft skills are often classified under lifelong skills, which are essential for our modern life where knowledge is growing exponentially (Dehkord, Samimi, Alivand, & Sani, 2017). The Introduction discussed a study conducted by Groh, Krishnan, McKenzie, and Vishwanath (2016) where they tested the impact of short soft-skills training courses on young Jordanian women’s employment outcomes. They did not find any correlations between them. Exposed for 45 hours over a nine-day period to several soft skills might have been enough time for these women to get a general idea about what these skills were, why they were sought after by employers, and how they might affect their job applications, but it was unlikely that these women could master these skills and put them into practice. Gonczi (2006) argued that soft skills need time and practice to grow. Indeed, it is easy to validate this claim. Just imagine public-speaking skills, which are important for most businesses. Although we may r...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Soft skills and graduate employability
• 1. The surge in developing soft skills for students in higher education
• 2. Soft-skills implementation: A literature review
• 3. The context of soft-skills implementation in Vietnamese universities
• 4. Models for the development of soft skills for students in Vietnamese universities
• 5. Contextual factors and leadership for soft-skills policy implementation: Lessons from two Vietnamese universities
• 6. Teaching soft skills in Vietnamese universities: Teachers’ beliefs, behaviors, and influential factors
• 7. Assessing soft skills: Practices and challenges
• 8. The contribution of internships to students’ development of employability
• 9. Students’ experience with developing soft skills via participation in extracurricular activities
• 10. External stakeholders’ roles in developing soft skills in Vietnamese universities
• 11. Students’ participation and engagement with soft-skills development
• 12. Building soft skills for employability: The way ahead
• Index