Soft skills centrality in graduate studies offerings
本文提出一个概念和方法框架，用二分网络估计软技能在研究生课程中的重要性。分析了哥伦比亚49所高校的230个研究生项目，发现31种软技能在预期学习成果中共享，其中创造力、领导力和分析导向最核心，而同理心、伦理思维和批判性思维则较边缘。
Is it possible to measure how critical soft skills like leadership or teamwork are from the viewpoint of graduate studies offerings?This paper provides a conceptual and methodological framework that introduces the concept of a bipartite network as a practical way to estimate the importance of soft skills as socio-emotional abilities trained in graduate studies.We examined 230 graduate programs offered by 49 higher education institutions in Colombia to estimate the empirical importance of soft skills from the viewpoint of graduate studies offerings.The results show that: (a) graduate programs in Colombia share 31 soft skills in their intended learning outcomes; (b) the centrality of these skills varies as a function of the graduate pro-gram, although this variation was not statistically significant; and (c) while most central soft skills tend to be those related to creativity (i.e.creation or generation of ideas or projects), leadership (to lead or teamwork), and analytical orientation (e.g.evaluating situations and solving problems), less central were those related to empathy (i.e.understanding others and acknowledgment of others), ethical thinking, and critical thinking, posing the question if too much emphasis on most visible skills might imply an unbalance in the opportunities to enhancing other soft skills such as ethical thinking.