Forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning

eLene4work – Developing a Framework for Soft Skills and Digital Soft Skills for Employability
Deborah Arnold et al.
Defining soft skills
One issue we would like to stress is that our approach about the skill concept is based on a
contextualised competence. That is, we understand that the skill has sense within a specific
context, situated in a specific context with specific characteristic (Guash, Alvarez, & Espasa,
2010).
It is necessary to frame the scope of our investigation and to better define what we mean with
the term soft skills. Life skills, social skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, transversal
competences, social competences, and meta-competences, are commonly used to refer to the
“emotional side” of human beings in opposition to the IQ (Intelligent Quotient) component
related to hard skills (Shalini, 2013).
According to Heckman and Kautz (2012) “soft skills [are] personality traits, goals,
motivations, and preferences that are valued in the labour market, in school, and in many
other domains […]”. They are “a mix of dispositions, understandings, attributes and
practices” (Yorke, 2006).
Knight and Page (2007) define them as wicked competences, as it is very difficult to define
them, because they can assume different forms in different contexts and they keep developing
along the entire lifetime (Ciappei & Cinque, 2014).
A working definition we propose for this article, it is taken from Haselberger and other
authors within the ModEs project (Haselberger et al., 2012; Cinque, 2012):
“Soft Skills represent a dynamic combination of cognitive and meta-cognitive
skills, interpersonal, intellectual and practical skills. Soft skills help people to
adapt and behave positively so that they can deal effectively with the
challenges of their professional and everyday life”.
We must also observe that the terms skill, competence and competency are often used
interchangeably, but they are not necessarily synonymous. Competencies may refer to sets of
skills, but competency is more of an umbrella term that also includes behaviours and
knowledge, whereas skills are specific learned activities that may be part of a broader context.
In particular, competence represents a dynamic combination of knowledge, understanding,
skills and abilities (Tuning Project, 2000). Competence can also be defined as a strategic
behaviour, linked to the possibility of adjusting performance to the demands from the context
(Guasch, Alvarez, & Espasa, 2010). Competency is also used as a more general description of
the requirements of human beings in organizations and communities. Skill often refers to
specific learned activities that may be part of a broader context.
The definition of digital soft skills or soft soft 2.0 requires the understanding of the wider
framework of digital competence.
346 Reaching from the roots – 9 th EDEN Research Workshop Proceedings, 2016, Oldenburg
ISBN 978-615-5511-12-7