Running head: DEVELOPMENT OF SOFT SKILL SCALES 1

Development of Soft Skills Scale

Christian V. Cruz

Richwell Colleges Inc.

DEVELOPMENT OF SOFT SKILL SCALES 2

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to construct and develop an instrument to measure soft skills. Six

skills were identified and included as factors of the scale namely: communication skills,

problem-solving and critical thinking, teamwork, life-long learning, leadership and ethics, and

professionalism. A total of 120 items (20 items each factor) were generated and left after face

validation from three experts. There were 216 college students, 42 males, 174 females, who

participated in the data gathering phase. Data analyses showed that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure

of Sampling Adequacy obtained values ranged from .915 to .956 which is a high value. In

addition, CFA parameter estimates for each factor ranged from .40 to .85 which confirms that the

items are grouped accordingly. Furthermore, for the internal consistency and reliability,

Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the entire scale is .986 which is high and a range of .36 to .82

for each item per factor. Split-half reliability also indicates high consistency with an average

value of .81 correlation between the first half number of items and the second half in each factor.

Further validation using a larger number of sample was recommended for future studies.

Keywords: soft skills, development, scale

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Development of Soft Skills Scale

Introduction and Literature Review

The rise of globalization has sped up the developments in the educational system.

Graduates have been honed not just with the technical knowledge and skills related to their

courses and prospective career track, but also with the intangible qualities they have to possess

which are referred to as “soft skills.” Soft skill is defined as “inter and intrapersonal (including

socio-emotional) skills, essential and important for personal development, social participation,

and workplace success (Kechagias, 2011).” Soft skills are personal attributes which enhance an

individual’s job performance (Hendarman & Tsakraatmadja, 2012). These skills include the

following: leadership, problem-solving, information management, communication, professional

ethics, life-long learning, teamwork and etc (Hendarman & Tsakraatmadja, 2012). These are

skills that are not commonly acquired through formal training but usually learned on the

consistent performance of a job. Thus, employees who possess competence and proficiency in

using soft skills are of advantage compared to employees possessing only technical skills.

More than that, studies have reported that governments or nations have adopted to

include soft skills as qualifying criteria for employment. For example, in the study of Zaharim,

Ahmad, Yusoff, Omar, and Basri (2012) has explored what soft skills are preferred by employers

for possible engineering applicants. There were 301 out of random sample 500 potential

employers who participated. They were given a survey for them to rank which among the skills,

both soft skills and hard or technical skills, are required to be hired. The list is composed of ten

common soft skills obtained from relevant literature. The ten were categories of skills coming

from 50 attributes. Likewise, included in the survey are sample applicant profiles wherein they

are to assess which among the applicants would most likely be hired. Data were collected

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through the interview (face-to-face, telephone, e-mail, and snowball). As a result, the top three

communication skills ranked first, teamwork skills ranked as second and professionalism rank

third. While problem-solving and decision-making are the least important. Employers chose

applicants having the top three skills.

Similarly, in the study of (Rongraunga, Somprach, Khanthapa, & Sitthisomjin, 2014),

they also evaluated on what level of proficiency and competency do the teachers in the basic

education level have and how can they develop such skills? Survey and interviews were

administered. Results showed that ethics and professionalism, teamwork, and thinking and

problem-solving skills were the most sought after skills. However, thinking and problem-solving,

communication skills, and innovation skills were lacking from new teachers. Lastly,

inexperienced teachers show good leadership, ethics and professionalism, and teamwork skills.

Likewise, in the study of (Attakorna, Tayuta, Pisitthawata, & Kanokorna, 2014), a similar

objective was carried out. The almost similar objective was set and that is to evaluate the level of

competencies secondary education teachers have in terms of their soft skills. The results showed

that communication skills were the highest and that life-long learning and information

management skills, Critical and problem-solving skills, Teamwork skills, Ethics, moral and

professional skills, Leadership skills and Innovation invention and development skills were

found to be lowest among the teachers.

However, these skills are difficult to assess and measure to see if an individual possesses

those skills. Past and recent studies provided different strategies and techniques to assess

competence in soft skills but there is no or a few tests measuring it. In this paper, an assessment

tool to measure soft skills was aimed to be developed.

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Methodology

Participants

There were two hundred sixteen college students who participated in the study, 42 males

(19.4%) and 174 females (80.6%) (age range 15-27, mean=17.89, SD= 1.627). They were

recruited during the final week of the semester through their professors and they were given

grade incentives for their participation.

Instrument

The proposed soft skills scale is composed of 6 skills with 20 items each. Each skill is

considered as a factor: Communication skills (CS), problem-solving and critical thinking skills

(PSCT), teamwork (TW), lifelong learning (LL), leadership (L) and ethics and professionalism

(EP). The items can be described as self-descriptions or statements describing the self. Five-point

Likert scale was used as response format where 1 expressed as “extremely not true about me”

thru 5-“very true about me.” The sub-total scores for each factor are obtained since 100 can be

the maximum score for each factor.

Procedures

Since the proposed scale is new, a survey was conducted from supervisors and managers

of different companies (Ciuhana & ban-Motounu, 2012), (Zaharim, Ahmad, Yusoff, Omar, &

Basri, 2012). The survey consisted of open-ended questions related to their preference in

applicants in terms of what soft skills they should possess when they apply. Alongside the

survey, related literature was gathered as support in identifying the different soft skills with their

respective theoretical definitions. Then, a table of the specification was made as a guide in

writing the items. There were six soft skills included and 20 items each skill yielding to 120 total

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items. The items then were subjected to face validation by three experts possessing doctorate

degrees specializing in educational psychology, personality psychology, and clinical psychology.

Some items had been revised but no items were deleted. The first draft was administered to a

pilot group composed of 30 participants. The administration last approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

The test was administered to the target group composed of 250 students, however, only 216

students returned the completed questionnaire.

The encoded data were subjected to statistical analyses. First, mean scores and standard

deviation values were obtained. Then, the scores were subjected to reliability analyses and factor

analysis for the validity analyses. For reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was obtained from

each factor. Split-half was also obtained. For the validity, confirmatory factor analysis was

utilized since the items were based on a table of specification (Kaplan & Sacuzzo, 2013).

Results

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the six factors of Soft Skills Scale.

KMO and Bartlett’s test was used for each factor (see table 1). The parameter estimates (PE) are

also presented in table 2

Table 1. KMO and Bartlet’s test of sphericity

Factor KMO App. Chi- df sig

square

CS .931 2097.903 190 .000

PSCT .915 1931.179 190 .000

TW .952 3275.980 190 .000

LL .943 2612.717 190 .000

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DEVELOPMENT OF SOFT SKILL SCALES 7

L .934 2567.153 190 .000

EP .956 2956.6986 190 .000

Table 1 shows that with p<.05, there is high factorability for each factor which implies

that sampling is adequate with respect to the amount of variance within the data that could be

explained by factors ( (Brace, Snelgar, & Kemp, 2012).

On the other hand, table 2 shows the component matrix of CFA which provided empirical

evidence of the adequacy of fit of the items to the factor (Besharata, 2011).

Table 2. Component Matrix of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (n=216)

CS PSCT TW LL L EP

Item PE Item PE Item PE Item PE Item PE Item PE

.73 Item .81 Item Item Item

Item17 .774 Item 28 .816 .803 .857
7 60 3 66 89 115

.70 Item .81 Item Item Item11

Item 16 .755 Item 27 .805 .766 .849
7 53 1 67 84 6

.69 Item .80 Item Item Item

Item 7 .734 Item 38 .794 .758 .825
4 51 1 74 91 118

.69 Item .79 Item Item Item

Item 19 .728 Item 39 .770 .755 .804
4 48 8 79 88 117

.68 Item .79 Item Item Item

Item 13 .716 Item 22 .765 .741 .801
6 58 0 61 83 120

.68 Item .78 Item Item Item10

Item 6 .704 Item 34 .761 .737 .789
6 54 5 64 93 5

.66 Item .78 Item .757 Item Item10

Item 12 .699 Item 23 .727 .781
5 56 0 73 90 8

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.66 Item .77 Item Item Item11

Item 15 .694 Item 33 .739 .725 .768
1 49 7 78 81 3

.65 Item .77 Item Item Item

Item 20 .693 Item 35 .727 .719 .766
7 52 6 77 85 110

.64 Item .77 Item Item Item

Item 8 .693 Item 21 .720 .717 .756
8 57 4 62 87 119

.61 Item .77 Item Item Item

Item 2 .688 Item 24 .714 .706 .753
9 59 1 75 96 111

.61 Item .75 Item Item Item

Item 18 .671 Item 29 .711 .702 .716
7 47 7 65 99 104

.60 Item .75 Item Item Item

Item 1 .650 Item 26 .710 .694 .710
3 45 0 76 82 101

.59 Item .74 Item Item Item

Item 10 .642 Item 25 .650 .690 .707
7 42 7 70 94 114

.59 Item .74 Item Item Item

Item 11 .636 Item 32 .648 .679 .697
4 46 0 63 98 112

.59 Item .73 Item Item Item

Item 4 .634 Item 37 .638 .677 .690
0 41 9 68 86 107

.58 Item .73 Item Item Item

Item 5 .585 Item 31 .622 .624 .666
4 55 2 72 92 109

.55 Item .72 Item Item Item

Item 9 .567 Item 40 .597 .517 .653
1 44 4 80 100 102

.50 Item .70 Item Item Item

Item 3 .515 Item 30 .425 .535 .633
9 43 7 71 97 106

.48 Item .60 Item Item Item

Item 14 .409 Item 36 .567 .446 .399
5 50 7 69 95 103

Reliability

To establish the reliability, cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated for the entire

scale and for each of the factor. Reliability for each item was also calculated. The entire scale

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obtained alpha coefficient value of .986, which implied high internal consistency. For each factor

yields the following values: CS= .93, PSCT= .918, TW= .961, LL= .943, L= .939, and EP= .953.

These results indicate high reliability. For each of the items per factor, the following values were

obtained. For CS= .464 to .73; PSCT= .437 to .686, for TW= .572 to .786, LL= .402 to .774, L=

.411 to .764, and EP= .369 to .829.

Table 3. Internal Reliability Coefficients for Soft Skills Scale

Item No. CS PSCT TW LL L EP

1 .600 .590 .708 .722 .685 .678

2 .641 .626 .716 .681 .641 .627

3 .464 .607 .675 .599 .698 .369

4 .594 .563 .693 .717 .718 .690

5 .539 .543 .722 .669 .677 .762

6 .657 .548 .709 .774 .622 .600

7 .695 .649 .730 .761 .673 .652

8 .648 .686 .770 .599 .711 .747

9 .510 .570 .746 .547 .764 .630

10 .595 .466 .572 .627 .677 .729

11 .590 .542 .775 .402 .716 .716

12 .657 .545 .746 .591 .581 .656

13 .673 .619 .783 .716 .710 .736

14 .360 .634 .757 .758 .660 .667

15 .646 .601 .699 .667 .411 .829

16 .714 .437 .747 .662 .672 .817

17 .730 .545 .743 .684 .502 .768

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18 .626 .645 .760 .695 .643 .794

19 .686 .648 .742 .734 .659 .718

20 .644 .494 .786 .554 .477 .765

In table 4, split-half reliability was also calculated and provided the following results.

Likewise, the values provided empirical evidence of high reliability.

Table 4. Split-half reliability of items in each factor of Soft Skills Scale

Factor 1st half 2nd half Correlation between 1st

& 2nd

CS .867 .885 .817

PSCT .87 .86 .737

TW .921 .941 .865

LL .905 .89 .849

L .922 .877 .76

EP .893 .94 .831

Discussion

Generally, the results provided empirical support for the factorial validity of the scales.

These findings are the implications of the following. First, the 6 soft skills which are the factors

in this scale confirmed the findings of (Attakorna, Tayuta, Pisitthawata, & Kanokorna, 2014),

(Junrat, Chaiwan, Suravee, & Kanokorn, 2013), and (Zaharim, Ahmad, Yusoff, Omar, & Basri,

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2012) that these are the common soft skills needed to be assessed whether job applicants of

different fields possess these or not.

Secondly, results provided that the items have high internal consistencies and the scores

have high reliability.

Third, the results implied that soft skills are inter-related but also unique from each other

as provided by the item correlation which is supported by (Hendarman & Tsakraatmadja, 2012),

and (Nargunde, 2013).

However, although the scale shows good psychometric properties, providing for the

reliability and validity of the scale is still essential and can be one of the important

recommendations for further studies. These include using test-retest and employing criterion-

related and construct validity. In addition, recruiting a larger number of participants coming from

a more diverse population can also be considered to make the scale more standardized and

generalizable.

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DEVELOPMENT OF SOFT SKILL SCALES 13

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