Teaching Soft Skills in Engineering Education: An European Perspective

TLDR

Higher education engineering students must develop soft skills—problem solving, teamwork, adaptability, and lifelong learning—to address complex sustainable challenges of the 21st century. The study aims to illuminate how soft skills are currently taught in higher education across five European countries and the challenges involved. The authors review existing practices in Greece, Estonia, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, highlighting best practices and technological solutions that facilitate soft‑skill development.

Abstract

Higher Education engineering students need to be prepared to address sustainable solutions to the complex problems faced in this century. They should become proficient problem solvers, able to work in multidisciplinary teams, ready to adapt to new technologies, and able to acquire new knowledge and skills when needed. Usually known as soft skills, these competences play a key role in Engineering and have being taught in the last two decades, to a greater or lesser extent, using different methodologies and tools. This study reviews the promotion and teaching of soft skills in Higher Education across 5 European countries: Greece, Estonia, Denmark, Portugal and Spain. It provides an overview of best practices on these countries, focusing also on technological solutions to actually enable the development of soft skills. The purpose of this research is to shed some light about how soft skills are being taught presently and the difficulties involved in that process.