Keyword: «soft skills»

The development of soft skills is a priority in the modern era of mass communications. The presence of mass communication mechanisms: social networks, makes it possible to exchange information, teach, promote a personal brand and provide various services. These circumstances place significant demands on the availability of soft skills. Such requirements are valid for students not only of humanities, but also of engineering specialties since full provision of information about their activities will improve the position of the speaker and achieve consistently high communication skills. The concept of soft skills is quite broad and can be interpreted by students through the prism of everyday experience rather than academic experience. This circumstance can lead to an incorrect perception of the soft skills requirements that the industry and possible employers place on graduates of engineering universities. This study is aimed at identifying the level of awareness of engineering students about soft skills. Also, one of the goals of the study was to identify the role of teaching materials and the use of such materials by students in practice in assessing the main components of soft skills. As a research method, a survey method was used, which was aimed at identifying the most important components of soft skills in the opinion of students. Next, as a training component, we chose the TED talks resource, which clearly illustrates the successful use of soft skills. After studying the training material and group discussion, the students were given the task of preparing a public speech as a team. Soft-skills components from the training materials were selected as evaluation criteria. After completing the task, students were asked to take the survey again and adjust their assessments of the important components of the soft skills considering the experience gained. Data from the two surveys were analyzed and compared. The results of the study can contribute to the formation of soft skills and will improve the quality of the educational process for non-humanitarian students.

The relevance of the research is due to the fact that most of the university courses today are aimed at developing hard skills of prospective specialists without taking in consideration soft skills formation in training. Even if there are some courses to improve students’ soft skills, they are planned, as a rule, without taking into account the current employers’ demands. It is worth noting that soft skills development today is very important in the professional field in general, and in the IT area in particular. The purpose of the study is to identify an optimal combination of soft skills that are required of the candidates for IT positions and make the applicants competitive in the labor market. The paper is based on a theoretical review and analysis of national and foreign scientific works on the subject of research. A questionnaire was chosen as an empirical research method. The scientific novelty of the results, in contrast to the results of foreign and domestic researches on the issue, is the following: 1) technical knowledge does not always contribute to professional success in the IT area because it largely depends on how well a specialist is able to work, listen and interact with others to promote a project or solve a problem in a team, 2) soft skills are additional values of IT specialists but only on condition that they realize what kinds of specific soft skills will be required and will be able to develop them, 3) university can become a suitable area for developing a currently important set of graduates’ soft skills. The theoretical significance of the research lies in advancing knowledge on the students’ soft skills development in higher educational institutions in order to improve their professional ways. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the authors identified and described an up-to-date combination of soft skills based on the results of interviews in Russian IT companies: curiosity and willingness to learn, interpersonal communication, customer-oriented mentality, collaboration, problem-solving ability, adaptability, prioritization and mentoring. The reliability and validity of the results were ensured by a comprehensive analysis of national and foreign academic literature on the research issue taking into account the fundamental methodological principles and the use of methods appropriate to the study.

Business communication is an integral part of professional activities in various fields, however, it continues to be mistakenly associated mainly with the social and humanitarian specialists and its presence in the curricula of IT training programs is insufficient. According to educational standards, business communication skill belongs to the group of universal competences and its development is often correlated with the discipline "Foreign Language", however, the practice of multidisciplinary universities gives the priority to ESP courses within this discipline. The requirements of IT professional standards contain generalized descriptions of proficiency in a foreign language, which complicates assigning the educational objectives. These contradictions confirm the relevance of the presented study, the aim of which is to identify indicators of the development of IT students’ foreign language business communication skills in terms of their future professional activity. To compass this purpose, theoretical and empirical research methods are used: analysis of relevant publications and global trends in the field of communication skills development; comparative analysis of the requirements of educational and professional standards for IT training programs outcomes, as well as their compliance with the concept of (foreign language) communicative competence. The analysis of publications reveals changes in the nomenclature describing learning outcomes. The comparative analysis of standards provides: 1) clarification of the skills necessary for business communication in the context IT specialists’ activities. These skills are subsequently divided into groups related to the components of (foreign language) communicative competence according to Jan A. van Ek model; 2) identifying of the indicators of IT students’ foreign language business communication skills based on activities manifested in the process of IT specialists’ professional performance. The theoretical significance of the obtained results is the specification of meta-educational constructs (competences) in terms of business communication in the context of technologically oriented professions. The practical significance of the obtained results is the possibility of optimizing training programs and developing new means of teaching business communication in areas where business communication is not a core aspect. Prospects for further research – to find methodological solutions for business communication skills development according to IT field requirements while studying the discipline "Foreign Language" within IT training programs.