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Soft Skills Development for Professors and Z Gen Students at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico) María Teresa Nicolás Gavilán, María de los Ángeles Padilla Lavín
Publicación original en INTED2019 Proceedings Año 2019 doi 10.21125/inted.2019.1736 Referencia bibliográfica Nicolás-Gavilán, M. T. y Padilla-Lavín, M. A. (2019). Soft Skills Development for Professors and Z Gen Students at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico). INTED2019 Proceedings. doi: 10.21125/ inted.2019.1736
Abstract There are new challenges in our universities with the arrival of Z Generation students. This generation is the first truly digital native generation. Labor markets are increasingly requiring a broader set of soft skills from the students: critical thinking, team collaboration, and communication. The primary objective of this study was to know the perception of the three soft skills mentioned above between professors and new students. The research was carried out in three different stages. The first stage focused on professors reflections, the second one centered on students´ perceptions and, the final step was to compare and contrast the information obtained from both of them. In the first stage, participated in more than 300 professors, using quantitative and qualitative techniques. On the second stage, more than 1,000 new students (2018-2022 cycle) participated in a survey about lifestyle. SPSS was chosen to make a comprehensive statistical analysis of the data obtained. The results show that the professors were aware of the importance of soft skills. The students are used to work and some aspects from critical thinking. In university classrooms, it is necessary to adjust teaching-learning processes and methods to foster the acquisition of soft skills.
For this purpose, UP programs, courses, and academic initiatives are being developed. Keywords: Soft skills, Z Generation, university, 21st-century educational challenges.
1. INTRODUCTION Universities are receiving the first students from Generation Z, also known in the literature as iGeneration, Net Generation, Post Gen, Plurals Homeland Generation or Generation of Post-Millennials [1,2, 3]. In Mexico, Generation Z is made up of just over 33 million men and women born since 1995, representing 27% of its total population [4]; worldwide, Generation Z is made up of just over 2,610 million people, around 35.5% of the total population of the planet [5]. One of the peculiarities of this generation is that they were born in a digitalized world where the internet is a reality - a commodity - that surrounds them everywhere, besides they do not conceive the world without technological devices that allow them to access diverse contents, without limit of spaces or time zones. The population that has access to digital services can establish relationships with people who are physically far away, with almost
