Soft Skills for the Twenty-First Century: Delphi Research

The chapter presents in its five subchapters the process of the Delphi research, which was conducted over three months and consisted of three rounds, each with sub-rounds focusing on different aspects of soft skills. The first round involved proposing and refining a list of important soft skills for the twenty-first century, along with their definitions. The second round aimed to categorize these skills. The goal of the final round was to develop a model that illustrates the interrelationships among these soft skills. The Delphi research successfully identified and defined thirty key soft skills for the twenty-first century and proposed their possible categorization. However, no consensus was reached on a specific model. The results of the Delphi research were reviewed with the conclusion that the names of the soft skills needed to be slightly modified to better align with established classifications. The definitions were evaluated against the criteria for a good definition with the conclusion that there is much room for improvement. The final recommendation is that the next steps include optimizing soft skill names and definitions and proposing a new classification and model that reflects the characteristics of specific soft skills and their interrelationships.