This is one of the recurring questions that comes to mind as we enter the mid-point of this study. Raised by some employers and educators, this question gets to one of the biggest areas of need we are seeing in the workplace - the ability to communicate, reason, problem-solve, and be a team player.
Unsurprisingly, many people have thought long and hard about this, and here is a nice post from the Workforce Solutions group at St. Louis Community College. A key idea is that:
"By the time students show up at an institution of higher education, they
have been socialized to a large extent. They come with habits,
preferences and behaviors deeply rooted in their personal experiences.
So, the likelihood that a college student will be able to demonstrate
acceptable non-cognitive behaviors in class is more of a function of
what they learned from their parents, K-12 education and other
experiences."
The author then goes on to state that this doesn't mean the postsecondary teacher is off the hook, and we are collecting some very nice examples of course curricula and classroom techniques that teachers (mostly in community colleges!) are using to explicitly cultivate the so-called "soft skills." I call them so-called because it's a pretty awful catch-all term, especially since it is intended to capture some behavioral norms that are culturally embedded - something the term "skills" doesn't really capture.
In any case, figuring out how to cultivate these aptitudes and skills in students seems to be something that would benefit not just the workforce, but the students themselves as they embark on their careers and lives. Figuring out just how to do that is turning out to be one of this research program's primary areas of inquiry.
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