Abstract:

In order to keep up with a rapidly changing society, universities have begun to change as well. Moreover, higher education institutions are under growing pressure to be more responsive to the needs of society and to enhance the employability of their graduates. These fast-paced changes in our society are resulting in an engagement of young people in the process of acquiring new skills. The main educational focus of most technical faculties in Croatia is on a wide range of technical or hard skills. However, in addition to seeking candidates with strong technical skills, nowadays most employers are placing more emphasis on hiring candidates with strong soft skills, such as work ethic, problem solving, time management, conflict resolution, teamwork, effective communication, active listening, leadership or critical thinking. These skills are not specific to any particular job. Instead, they are universal and closely related to personality traits, interpersonal and communication skills needed for success in the workplace. Unlike hard skills which are easily measurable and can be learned and improved over time, soft skills tend to be more difficult to measure or evaluate, since there is no right-answer test to assess someone’s level of empathy, patience, adaptability or collaboration. As soft skills are becoming increasingly valuable for the workforce of the future and significant determinants of success, integrating soft skills trainings in higher education becomes crucial to prepare graduates for the professional world.

The main objective of this paper was to investigate students’ perception about the importance of soft skills and the extent to which teachers encourage soft skills development by integrating it into their courses. The questionnaire-based survey was done among undergraduate engineering students at the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture in Osijek, Croatia. The collected data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The research results indicate students’ strong awareness of the importance of soft skills for their future employment, but at the same time they believe that the soft skills development should be fostered even more through learning and teaching processes.

Keywords:

Soft skills, students’ attitudes, tertiary level of education, employability of graduates.