16 SOFT SKILL THOUGHT TEACHING AND LEARNING IN FUTURE OF WORK

Abstract

Suitable soft skills in professional career working in Thailand are important in post COVID-19 Era. The research aims to 1) find the most essential soft skill for employment and 2) study alternative guideline to development soft skill for higher education management. There were 2 phase of data collection in this study. The first phase was documentary research, And the second phase was conducted qualitatively using an in-depth interview and two focus group interviews were conducted with 27 participants consisting of 3 job mentor, 16 cooperation advisor/job mentor and 8 representatives of establishment respectively. All information was analyzed by using content analysis. The results revealed 16 soft skills as follows: 1) communication skills 2) leadership 3) negotiation skills 4) work ethics 5) decision-making 6) design thinking 7) innovation skills 8) analytical and synthetic skills 9) problem solving 10) teamwork 11) media and technology skills 12) professional skills 13) environment life skills 14) emotional skills 15) time management and 16) willingness to learn skills. Both cooperation advisor and representatives of establishment present the development of soft skill by using general education curriculum to implement a volunteer project based on subject education in three ways: 1) integration through various activities 2) integration through the mission of the higher educational institution with participate course and 3) cross-curricular and cross-disciplinary integration. Finally higher education and enterprises must be collaboration for development of soft skills together.