Formation of soft skills in the educational process of higher education as a factor in the development of competitiveness of young professionals

Abstract

Introduction. Modern professional activity of a specialist in tourism and hospitality requires the possession of not only highly specialized, so-called hard skills, but also skills, which in contrast to the former are considered “soft”. The growing tourism services sector, international competition, new forms of work organization require from a specialist to possess, first of all, the skills of self-organization, communication, teamwork, etc. Materials and methods. The study involved 86 people (46 people were in the control group; 40 people were in the experimental group) who were students of “Hospitality Management” at Tula State University. Methods of questionnaires, participant observation and “mystery shopping” were used to determine the level of formation of soft skills in the participants of the control group. The survey among employers (n=10) was conducted. To analyze the effectiveness of the forming experiment the χ2-Pearson’s criterion was used. Results. The formative stage of experimental work was associated with the introduction of organizational and pedagogical conditions in the practice of training bachelors in the direction of “Hotel Management”. It was found that the identified organizational and pedagogical conditions affect the formation of professionally significant qualities of a specialist, underlying its productive competitiveness in the field of professional activity. It was revealed that the students of the experimental group more actively form the skills of mental self-regulation and overcoming stressful situations (χ2 = 6.64; p<0.05). Discussion. The practical significance of the results is determined by the possibility of their use in training not only specialists in the field of tourism, but also other representatives of professions that are part of the “human-human” system.