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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1383297

A systematic review of soft skills interventions within curricula from school to university level

Provisionally accepted
Dominic Orih Dominic Orih 1,2*Marion Heyeres Marion Heyeres 2Rhian Morgan Rhian Morgan 3Hyacinth Udah Hyacinth Udah 1,4Komla Tsey Komla Tsey 1,2
  • 1 College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
  • 2 The Cairns Institute, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
  • 3 James Cook University, Townsville, Australia
  • 4 College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Soft skills are increasingly promoted in curricula, writ large in its scholarly interest over the last decade. Yet systematic literature reviews covering all educational stages are lacking. This review addresses this gap by examining soft skills interventions across all educational levels, evaluating their characteristics, design quality, and outcomes.A comprehensive search was conducted across ERIC, Scopus, Informit A+ Education, and Google Scholar databases from 2012 to 2022 to identify peer-reviewed studies on soft skills interventions within education curricula at all levels. Study characteristics were extracted, analysed and synthesised to inform conclusion. Quality assessment was performed using The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) and the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) evaluation tools. This study is registered at PROSPERO (CRD42022309833).The search yielded 5,689 records, and after eligibility assessment, 38 studies were included.These studies employed various interventions that span three categories namely, workshop-based, creative-based, and project-based approaches, to enhance students' soft skills. Reported outcomes encompassed improved soft skills, employability, career planning, social-emotional learning, academic performance, and reduced issues like violence, drug abuse, depression, and bullying. Quality appraisal using CASP and EPHPP tools identified three studies as 'best practice' among the 38. The review highlights diverse interventions and positive impacts on students' holistic development through soft skills programs.The analysis of 38 studies underscores the shortage of literature on soft skills in primary and secondary schools compared to universities, a lack of high-quality 'best practice' resources for soft skills development, and a tendency for control group participants to miss vital soft skills training. Consequently, we recommended that future research consider these aspects to enhance the effectiveness of soft skills development in curricula.

    Keywords: Soft skills, wellbeing, Interventions, Curricula, Primary students, Secondary students, university students, Systematic review

    Received: 07 Feb 2024; Accepted: 30 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Orih, Heyeres, Morgan, Udah and Tsey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Dominic Orih, College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.