Soft Skills Research in Higher Education: Top 100 Scopus-Indexed Publications

Abstract

Introduction. At present, employers’ standards for university graduates are scrutinized, obviously stepping up requirements for soft skills. The issue of modernization of university curricula or development of new ones that include soft skills development in the framework of university education is relevant. The importance of the problem makes us turn to the experiences of foreign universities. This article aims to identify the main subject areas, where much attention is paid to the issues of soft skills, as well as directions of research on students’ soft skills development between 2010 and 2020 in the framework of higher education. Materials and Methods. ИThe study was conducted in two phases. During the first phase, we used a search strategy to identify the main subject areas of research on the topic of soft skills development in the period from 2010 to 2020. At the second phase, a study of one hundred most cited articles indexed in the Scopus database on the topic of soft skills in education was carried out. The selection was based on the inclusion and non-inclusion criteria. We used a method of content analysis. The selected articles were divided into several clusters demonstrating the research focus. Results. The analysis of foreign studies provided information on the subject fields that essentially focus on forming soft skills. The main subject areas, where the largest number of studies on soft skills published from 2010 to 2020 were recorded, embrace social sciences, IT, engineering, business and accounting. The areas of research on students’ soft skills in the period between 2010 and 2020 were general pedagogical issues, issues of increasing employability, and different areas of education. Discussion and Conclusion. A selection of the worldʼs best practices described in the leading articles on the formation of soft skills in education enriches the collection of methodological techniques of teachers in various specialized disciplines. The materials of the article can be useful for methodologists and teachers of professional education institutions, engaged in the formation and development of a new type of curricula, taking into account the needs of the modern labor market, and persons interested in the problems of higher education.