Soft skills in design education - identification, classification, and relations: Proposal of a conceptual map

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆

Soft skills are interpersonal, social, and emotional competencies that cut across knowledge domains and daily life. Despite their importance in the Knowledge Age, research on soft skills within design education remains limited. This mixed-methods study presents a conceptual map built from a survey of 93 teachers in 26 countries, combined with literature analysis to define constructs and their relationships.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction: The importance of soft skills in design education

Soft skills across domains and education

Need for updated design education paradigms

Gaps in existing research on soft skills in design education

Soft skills in design education, identification, classification, and relations: Proposal of a conceptual map Ana Paula Nazaré de Freitas, Pará State University (UEPA), Brazil Rita Assoreira Almendra, Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon, CIAUD, Portugal Abstract Soft skills are interpersonal, social, and emotional competencies, transversal to various fields of knowledge and life. In the Knowledge Age, soft skills play an essential role in the differentiation of human work. Nevertheless, in design education, there are still few studies on soft skills. This study brings a conceptual map of soft skills in design education. It refers to a mixed-methods research conducted through a survey involving 93 teachers of high education design courses in 26 countries. We combined the survey results with a literature review analysis aimed at defining constructs and identifying their relationship. Finally, we propose a classification for soft skills as being Collective/Individual and Cognitive-Metacognitive/Interpersonal-Social. Our research recognises the connections and interdependence among skills, allowing us to settle different groups and establish relations among other skills. Furthermore, based on literature, we identified a hierarchy of gateways skills and high order skills and pointed out their connections. Additionally, a conceptual map was created, including the 20 primary soft skills in design education, their proposed classification, and the links between the skills. The result can help teachers and students know the primary soft skills in design education and develop teaching-learning approaches to acquire soft skills during their university training. Keywords Soft skills, 21century skills, life skills, design education, teaching design Introduction: The importance of soft skills in design education Soft skills are interpersonal, social, and emotional skills. They are transversal to various fields of knowledge and life. There are different labels to refer to these skills: 21-century skills (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2005), life skills (World Health Organization [WHO], 1994), generic skills (Virtanen & Tynjälä, 2018), or key skills (Rychen & Salganik, 2003) . Despite the various names and the lack of consensus in the literature on their classification, employers have increasingly sought these skills (Majid et al., 2012; Succi & Canovi, 2020) . For this study, we use the proposition: "Soft skills represent a dynamic combination of cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, interpersonal, intellectual and practical skills. " (Haselberger et al., 2010, p.73) . They are often related to working in groups, thinking systematically, collaborating, and developing self-regulation and socio-emotional skills. They are referred continuously as differentiators in the contemporary context (Rychen, 2016; OECD, 2009), characterised by increasing complexity, constant change in everyday life, and technological advancement that gradually replaces human labour with algorithms (Harari, 2018) . At the same time, the number and complexity of the crises we have to deal with are growing: the economic crisis, the environmental crisis and recently, the health crisis. These realities require increasingly resilient, flexible, adaptable, and emotionally intelligent individuals. Faced with this scenario in which modern development concepts are no longer sufficient to explain and direct human action, it is necessary to question the teaching-learning models, contents, and skills intended to be developed in young people in training. Many studies have highlighted the importance of developing personal, emotional, and subjective skills. In design education is not different; there is a need to update teaching as well as the skills needed by designers of the 21st century has been indicated by researchers in the field (Meyer & Norman, 2020; Norman, 2010; Friedman, 2012; Frascara, 2018; Findeli, 2001) . Design

FAQs

What are soft skills in the context of this study?

Soft skills are described as interpersonal, social, and emotional competencies, linked to cognitive and meta-cognitive skills as well as intellectual and practical abilities.

How was the conceptual map for soft skills in design education developed?

The study uses a mixed-methods approach combining a survey of 93 teachers across 26 countries with a literature review analysis to define constructs and identify relationships.

What classification and relationships does the study propose for soft skills?

Soft skills are classified as Collective/Individual and Cognitive-Metacognitive/Interpersonal-Social, highlighting interdependence among skills and including links between groups and a hierarchy of gateway and high-order skills.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆