Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills - MASS - Measuring and ...

strongly indicates that the students in the control group gave final answers, which are not in
accordance with the initial answers, more than their colleagues in the control group.
The above observation may suggest that the major contribution of the MASS classes were in
the improvement of self-knowledge. MASS students improved their self-knowledge and they
change their final answers more than the ones of the control group. A part of the
improvement, of both the experimental and the control groups came from the participation
in the school itself.
The rate of attendance was almost 100%, while there were no dropouts.
SW
After translation of the material, they were very useful because they cover many areas of
soft skills. Sometimes they are not suitable to the audience e.g. too childish, but the ability
to modify and replace them for a specific audience with more suitable ones is very good.
Most of the participants became gradually more aware of their own and each other’s
behaviours, time keeping became more important and they liked to be active in class and
tried to discuss and solve problems. Most participants understood the benefits of changing
their own behaviour and why others behave as they do. But to understand and then make
changes is not the same thing. For some persons, 12 weeks is a short time to make these
changes of their habits. But the understanding of your behaviour and why you do what you
do grew in all who participated in the MASS project.
The teachers think that the MASS materials are very easy to work with and the significant
variations are possible. Being able to replace and substitute materials is very good. The
additional materials and the free material on Internet is a great help.
The catchments area is small and it means that many young people know each other before
entering the labour programme. This facilitates usually, not always, team building and group
activities. The teachers don’t think that MASS specifically had any effect to the team
dynamics.
Contact between tutors and participants are intense as they get together 40 hours / week
and MASS are 4 hours of that time. There is no indication that relates students – teachers
relationships with MASS courses.
Attendance is nearly 100%, because the participants lose their allowances for inexcusable
absence.
RO
Romanian partners examined the student progress by using:
1. Self-assessment based on grading against each soft skill contained in MASS
materials, in a 4-point scale – from Unsatisfactory to Very Good – at the beginning
and after the end of the course.
2. Teachers’ assessment, with the same procedure described above.
3. Rosenberg’s self-esteem test before the beginning and after the end of course/
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