Abstract:

Soft skills can be widely defined in terms of a set of interpersonal qualities, personal skills or attributes that one possesses, such as the capacity to communicate, problem-solve, leadership qualities, and the ability to work well and ethically in a team. Whereas hard skills, or the technical expertise and knowledge needed for a job, are fostered, and can be acquired, explicitly and successfully through university training, soft skills seem to be more difficult to develop and master through university education, despite they have been identified as critical for productive performance in today’s workplace. A great amount of research has been shown their key role both for individuals and organizations in terms of job success, performance and productivity.

A further emphasis in the university curricula is needed not only in fostering soft skills, so that students could learn their importance early in their academic programs, but in the proper enhancing and development of such soft skills through academic curricula. Gamification –the application of gameful thinking, and game mechanics, in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems or carrying out tasks- could represent a useful and successful tool in this sense. There exist an ongoing growing body of empirical evidence in supporting that learning in a variety of subjects as well as the development of key personal skills, can be favoured effectively by games in an engaging and motivating way. Moreover, it has been found that classroom instruction build less confidence for on-the-job application of learned knowledge, than simulation games does. However, a substantial part of the obtained empirical results at this level come from digital games that could not provide face-to-face interaction, while in a classroom situation, student-student interactions might exert a deep impact in the enhancement and acquisition of core competences as soft skills. Therefore, more research is needed regard to face-to-face game based learning tools that might contribute to foster such soft skills amongst undergraduates’ students.

Whereas, soft skills are important in mostly all professional domains, in those professions related with Health and Social Work are crucial and critical. Psychology, Physiotherapy, and Social Work university undergraduates, throughout their university training, must acquire soft skills as the capacity to communicate, and the ability to work well and ethically with others. In this context this paper deals with examining the effects of a serious game called “the group to the rescue” on undergraduates´ soft skills. This simulation game implies for participants to be confronted to a new and a potential stressfully situation that needs a fast and effective solution as a group. Our results in sample composed by 130 Psychology, Physiotherapy and Social Work university undergraduates that participated in the game, showed that after it, they perceived an enhancement in their own soft skills especially in terms of cooperation and work ethically with others. These findings are of usefulness in order to foster the development of soft skills through university education.

Keywords:

Game-based learning, soft skills, Psychology, Physiotherapy and Social Work undergraduates.