A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RESEARCH ON SOFT SKILLS FOR EMPLOYABILITY

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.314064

Keywords:

Soft Skills, Employability, Higher Education, Graduates, Employers

Abstract

Science mapping was utilized in this systematic review of research to analyze the body of knowledge on soft skills for employability.  ​​The research review selected high impact articles, charted the "intellectual structure", and recorded the volume, development rate, and geographical spread of this literature. Forty-five English-language, Scopus-indexed documents that were published between 2013 and 2023 made up the database of this review.  The review revealed that the documents on soft skills for employability has slightly grown over the recent years with an average of 6 documents published in each year of 2017 to 2021.  The field was mostly dominated by scholars from Europe and Asia. Four "schools of thought" were identified through author co-citation analysis as the "intellectual structures” of soft skills for employability.  These are: Soft Skill Development of Students, Employers’ Expectations on Graduates, Key Soft Skills, and Measuring Employability. Analysis of the document content resulted in the conclusion that there is a clear agreement in the literature that employability and career preparedness are difficult notions that cannot be simply defined, quantified, or put into practice.  A significant gap between the demands of the actual world and our educational system in terms of soft skills has been determined.  The research recommends "skillfying the syllabus" or "skillification" in order to guarantee that soft skills are taught in the curriculum.

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References

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Published

2024-12-30

How to Cite

Villegas, C. (2024). A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF RESEARCH ON SOFT SKILLS FOR EMPLOYABILITY. Advanced Education, 12(25), 200–212. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.314064

Issue

2024: Issue 25

Section

Literature Review

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Copyright (c) 2024 Christian Villegas. The cover for this article was generated with the assistance of ChatGPT

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