Soft skills. Everyone has heard of them, but many people can’t define them. They are called durable skills, professional skills, life skills, enduring skills, career readiness skills and a host of other names. Research shows these skills lead to health, happiness and more success in school and life. Most schools, however, do not have a comprehensive strategy to build soft skills or a way to measure them in students, so they continually face persistent and stubborn equity gaps in student outcomes.
Below are the top five reasons you should work to design a sound strategy for developing soft skills in your teachers and students.
1. Soft skills improve academic outcomes
The Society for Research in Child Development notes that soft skill training for your students can increase GPA and academic performance by 11%[1]. The Global Labor Organization found that student soft skill training increases graduation rates by 30% and increases math testing scores in boys by 7.5% and in girls by 10.7%[2]. Soft skills training also increases assignment completion and performance by 9.3%[3]. Including soft skills training in your Tier 1 MTSS plan is a no-brainer!
2. Teacher soft skills impact student outcomes
Nearly ¾ of employers say they cannot find employees with sufficient soft skills and the education sector is no different[4]. Because teacher preparation programs do not focus on soft skill development, our teachers do not necessarily have the skills they need to collaborate, implement curriculum or build relationships with students and this skills gap impacts your students’ outcomes. The National Bureau of Economic Research reports that teacher soft skills directly impact student dropout rates and graduation rates[5]. It also found teacher soft skill ability directly explains the variance in student absences, suspensions and GPA[6].
3. Soft skills lead to a happier life
The BESSI Research group reports that soft skills account for nearly 2/3 of our general life happiness[7]. Stress regulation, social warmth, teamwork, anger management, time management and other critical soft skills help us feel more in control of our life and allow us to manage our relationships, responsibilities and emotions. They can even impact our health! The University of Chicago found that student soft skills predict health problems in adulthood, even after accounting for social class origins and IQ, and soft skills are a better predictor of financial success and achievement of advanced credentials than social class or IQ[8].
[1] https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x
[2] https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/167616/1/GLO-DP-0105.pdf
[3] Ibid
[4] https://www.careereducationreview.net/2016/10/hard-facts-about-soft-skills/
[5] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18624/w18624.pdf
[6] Ibid.
[7] http://www.sebskills.com/our-research.html
[8] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1010076108
4. Students cannot be future-ready without soft skills
Soft skills are necessary in the workforce. LinkedIn’s Global Talent Report reveals that 89% of recruiters say soft skills are the culprit for a bad hire[9]. Fortune 500 CEOs report that 75% of long-term job success depends on soft skills, while only 25% on technical knowledge[10]. To be ready for their futures, students need soft skills, and they won’t learn them unless we have a strategic way of teaching and assessing them.
5. Teachers do not know how to teach soft skills
Teachers report they do not have time and do not have the training they need to teach soft skills. SHRM reports that 51% of employers believe the education system hasn’t helped close the soft skill gap.[11] Schools need to have a common understanding of soft skills and use shared vocabulary and measurements to assess soft skill development. Kelvin, Murray and Company report only 20% of employees feel comfortable talking about soft skills in their performance reviews[12]. Schools can help teachers and students learn soft skills together and build a culture where these skills are prioritized. The University of Chicago reports that soft skills are a 169% stronger predictor of academic achievement than IQ score, so creating a soft skills culture has a great return on investment, improves school climate and increases student achievement[13].
Tips for designing a program to developing a culture that prioritizes soft skills
Our brains learn through repetition, experience and emotion. Developing soft skills needs to be a systematic and strategic initiative that becomes part of a school’s culture and heuristics.
1. Develop shared vocabulary.
We cannot build skills for which we have no name or clear definition and teachers can be confused about how to teach them. Without a discrete, shared definition, teachers ascribe their own perspectives and students fail to transfer what they learn. Start by identifying and defining the soft skills you will focus on. Developing shared language ensures student learning around these skills is clear and reinforced across all classrooms.
2. Provide daily practice and ongoing measurement.
Skills are built by doing. Provide opportunities for students to set goals, regulate their anger and stress, and learn social engagement skills. Design or use validated measurements of your targeted skills, so students can see their skills grow and identify the impact they have on their performance at school, at work and in relationships. When we measure things, they matter. Measuring soft skills sends a message that they matter and gives students data they can share on college essays or in job interviews.
[9] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1010076108
[10] Ibid.
[11] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/humanity-into-hr/pages/covid-19-soft-skills-at-work.aspx
[12] https://leadershipcommunication.co.uk/sharpen-soft-skills-will-make-inspiring-manager-boost-career/
[13] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Hard-Evidence-on-Soft-Skills-Heckman-Kautz/932a27890295b8714274faf5b752086469a7b51d?p2df
3. Build a skills-focused culture
Descriptions related to school culture are often very conceptual rather than concrete. When schools use shared vocabulary and teachers connect those skills to classroom activities and learning, you are on your way to building a culture where skill development is valued and rewarded. Teachers are not exempt from the skills gap either, so consider ways you can enhance teacher skill development by having them set professional goals related to their individual skill development and by having teacher teams rate themselves on the same set of skills they are developing in students. When teachers and students are learning together, we can amplify the impact of progress. Teachers will become more self-aware, share their skill development experiences with students and model the skills in their classrooms.
About the Author
Lisa Riegel, Ph.D. is a co-founder of a software solution that measures, trains, and tracks soft skills. She developed the JAKAPA program after twenty years of teaching at the high school, college, and graduate level. She also spent the last 15 years coaching educational leaders on how to engage students and staff. Her work revealed that soft skills gaps are the key culprit for achievement gaps, disengagement, and unproductive teams. JAKAPA is built to address the soft skills gap and help people gain the skills they need to be happy, healthy and more successful.
