Paper ID #34514

A Provisional History of the Idea of ”Soft” vs. ”Hard” Skills in

Engineering Education
Dr. Kathryn A. Neeley, University of Virginia
Kathryn Neeley is Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society in the Engineering and Society
Department of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. She has
served twice as chair of the Liberal Education/Engineering and Society Division of ASEE and received
that division’s Sterling Olmsted Award for outstanding contributions to liberal education for engineers.

c American Society for Engineering Education, 2021

 A Provisional History of the Idea of “Soft” vs. “Hard” Skills in
Engineering Education

soft adj. 1. not hard, firm, or rough. 2. not loud or bright. 3. gentle. 4. (too) sympathetic and kind. 5.
weak, foolish. 6. (of drinks) nonalcoholic, 7. (of drugs) not highly addictive.
soft option easy alternative. soft-pedal v. refrain from emphasizing

--Oxford Mini Reference Dictionary and Thesaurus, p.598

disparage v. suggest that something is of little value or importance.

syn. belittle, criticize, decry, denigrate, deprecate, minimize, run down, undervalue.

--Oxford Mini Reference Dictionary and Thesaurus, p.172

The definitions above capture three important dimensions of the word “soft.” First, it is
often defined in the negative, as the absence or opposite of something. Second, it is vague in the
sense that it means very different things in different contexts. Third, in most contexts, it is
fundamentally disparaging. As a term used in engineering education, “soft skills” is filled with
contradictions and ambiguity. For example, the “hard” skills map easily onto recognized
academic disciplines (mathematics, basic science, engineering), while the expertise that
constitutes “soft” skills is difficult to locate in academic disciplines and departments. Still,
whatever these “soft skills” are, they are significant predictors of future success in engineering.

All of the humanities and social sciences have the potential to contribute to the
development of “soft skills,” but none can lay exclusive claim to them. The multidisciplinary
nature of “soft skills” means that they are both everywhere and nowhere in an academic context.
Both the “soft” and the “skills” elements of the concept have been called into question. In both
categories, alternatives have been proposed, but none has become widely accepted. This paper
reports on the first phase of a work-in-progress: a historical and philosophical inquiry into why
the terminology of soft versus hard skills emerged, how it has evolved, why it has been so
persistent, why it is problematic, and how we might be able to move beyond it in engineering
education.

Here, the focus is on the circumstances that led to the emergence and prevalence of the
term in two different contexts: (1) the discourse community of speakers of English as represented
in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and (2) the discourse community of engineering
education as reflected in papers published by the American Society for Engineering Education
(ASEE) in the period 1996-2020. The combination of these two perspectives reveals that (1) the
conversation on soft skills is by no means limited to engineering education; (2) interest in the
topic has increased dramatically since 1996; and (3) implementation of the EC2000 accreditation
criteria provided the impetus for the dramatic increase in interest within ASEE.

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Research Approach: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Publications Over Time

The research approach used here starts with the assumption that the circumstances in
which a term emerges offer valuable insight into the function it was created to fulfill. More
specifically, this study combines qualitative and quantitative methods and draws on the
conventions of the history of ideas, which traces the origins and development of the beliefs that
guide decisions and actions (see, for example, Skinner, 1969 and Bevir, 2000). In its most basic
form, the history of ideas traces change over time and consists of three sequential steps:
1. focus on the emergence of new terms as an indication of broad cultural changes,
2. identify influential authors and publications on those terms, and
3. correlate the emergence of terms and authors with events that could motivated
them.
As Philip Wiener put it in the preface to his five-volume Dictionary of the History of Ideas:
Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas (1973), “the historian of ideas makes his [sic] particular
contribution to knowledge by tracing the cultural roots and ramifications of the specialized
concerns of the mind” (p. vii).

The approach to the history of ideas outlined above is greatly facilitated by what has
come to be termed “text mining,” “an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that uses natural
language processing (NLP) to transform the free (unstructured) text in documents and databases
into normalized, structured data suitable for analysis” (Linguamatics, What Is Text Mining).
Search engines provided by Google and others have made the quantitative analysis of large
bodies of texts far less labor-intensive than it was in the days of card catalogues.

Although it is possible to do sophisticated assessments of the impact of publications, the

approach taken here rests on a simple premise: an increase or decrease in the number of
publications indicates increasing or declining interest in a topic or idea. Such an approach is
appropriate because scholarship in the history of ideas seeks correlation rather than causation and
advantageous because it allows for efficient discernment of changes over time across disciplines
and domains. In sum, the comprehensiveness and scope of the history of ideas approach make up
for what it lacks in specificity and causality.

The text mining capability provided by document repositories such as ASEE’s PEER
database, makes it possible to do quantitative analysis that provides at least a rough outline for
the history of particular ideas in engineering education. Given the size and scope of ASEE as an
organization, it seems reasonable to infer that papers published in the proceedings of the various
conferences that ASEE sponsors are broadly representative of trends in engineering education
since 1996.

Humphreys and Wang (2018) explain the theoretical foundations of quantitative text
analysis (including automated text analysis) as consisting of three basic propositions: (1) “by
studying language [we] study thought. . .language is conversely important because it shapes
thought” (p. 1278), (2) “language represents attention in two ways. When [people] are thinking
of or attending to an issue, they tend to express it in words. Conversely, when [people] are
exposed to a word, they are more likely to attend to it” (p. 1279), (3) “Word frequency,
measuring how frequently a word occurs, is one way of measuring attention” (p. 1279), and (4)

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automated text analysis provides “tools for analyzing language, aggregating insight, and
distilling knowledge from this overwhelming amount of data” (p. 1275), including “prediction of
variables outside of the text” (p, 1291). 1

Using the framework Humphreys and Wang provide, the analysis described here takes a
“top-down approach” (p. 1284) because it began with a focus on a particular language construct,
“soft skills.” A search of PEER using the term “soft skills” yielded the details presented below in
two different domains: (1) the numbers of papers featuring that terminology over time and (2)
the pervasiveness and distribution of the scholarly discourse on soft skills based on the number
of divisions treating the topic and the divisions in which the topic seems to play the most
important role. Understanding the origins of the term, however, requires going back to a time
before automated text analysis and the establishment of the PEER repository.

Qualitative Results: The Story of Origin That Emerges in the First Published Attempts to
Define “Soft” vs. “Hard” Skills

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the leading historical dictionary in
the English-speaking world, the first published mention of “soft skills” occurred in 1957 in an
article published in the Atlanta Constitution. The first systematic scholarly publication on “soft
skills”originated from a conference convened by the U.S. Continental Army Command
(CONARC) in 1972. The screenshot below shows the entry on “soft skills” in context. The astute
reader will notice that the report from the 1972 conference is not recorded, a surprising omission
on the part of the OED. Still, the publications included in the entry on “soft skills” provided an
entry point for identifying other publications, including the CONARC report.

Experts in the social and behavioral sciences were convened at the CONARC conference
to develop a model of systematic training that would help military personnel cultivate the
capability “to command, counsel, supervise, and lead.” It is worth noting here that the connection
of “soft skills” and leadership has been an enduring theme in engineering and beyond. Even at
that early stage in deliberate use of the terminology, the participants in the 1972 conference
recognized “that the use of the terms ‘Soft Skill’ and ‘Hard Skill’ [should] be discontinued” (p. I-
2). Nearly 50 years later, the use of the distinction is still common.

1
It is an open question whether the search functions in PEER actually constitute text mining. In any case, the
theoretical foundations that Humphreys and Wang provide apply to data generated through PEER.

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 The reports on the CONARC conference use the soft-hard distinction to differentiate
between specialized and non-specialized skills, or perhaps more accurately, domain specific vs.
generally applicable or transferable expertise. When Turley (1981) used the hard-soft distinction
in an assessment of U.S. mobilization of manpower [sic] during a national emergency, he used
“technical” and “nontechnical” as synonyms and provided these examples: a “signal corps
repeater man” or an “electronics mechanic” exemplify “hard skills,” while cooking, driving, and
handling various forms of paperwork exemplify “soft skills” that do not become obsolete in the
way “hard” or technical skills do (Turley, 1981, p.11).

From the beginning, the soft skills proved devilishly hard to define. One of the experts at
the 1972 conference observed somewhat wryly that the CONARC definition of soft skills as
“job-related skills involving actions affecting primarily people and paper (II-4). . .leaves much to
the imagination” [emphasis added] (p. II-5). Eventually, the same expert concluded that soft
skills could only be clearly defined in the negative: “Those job functions about which we know a
good deal are hard skills and those about which we know very little are soft skills” (p. II-7).

This conclusion bears remarkable resemblance to a remark made to the author of this
paper at an ABET annual meeting in the late 1990s: “Soft is what an engineer calls anything he
[sic] doesn’t understand.” On one hand, these difficulties make it even more puzzling that the
idea and terminology of “soft skills” have persisted. On the other hand, the ambiguity is probably
an indicator of the enduring appeal of “soft skills,” especially in the context of engineering
education: it provides a way to name something important without being overly specific about
what is being named.

Quantitative Results: A Burgeoning Conversation Prompted by the EC2000 Criteria

The frequency data from PEER reveal a burgeoning conversation that grew from 4 papers
in 1996 to 23 in 2001, 51 in 2007, 94 in 2015, 117 in 2017, and 124 in 2020. Although the
pattern is a little irregular, the overall picture is one of rapid growth. Figure 1 below correlates
significant changes in the total number of papers on “soft skills” with developments within
ASEE and engineering education more broadly.

These trends and correlated events suggest that “soft skills” provided a readily available
name for competencies in the EC2000 criteria that were outside of the STEM disciplines. In
other words, engineering educators needed a name for the heterogeneous set of abilities that were
not developed systematically in their own areas of specialization. Beyond that, it seems
reasonable to infer that the categories of “hard” vs. “soft” appealed because they reflected a
binary, hierarchical framework in which the “hard” (STEM) disciplines were superior, even
when the outcomes grounded in the HSS outnumbered those developed through STEM.

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 Figure 1: Results by Year for PEER Search of “Soft Skills” 1996-2020.

• 2020 (124)
• 2019 (116)
• 2018 (100) Leadership Development in Engineering Constituent Committee
• 2017 (117) established in 2014, becomes LEAD Division in 2015
• 2016 (87)
• 2015 (94)
After steady increase, variable pattern but generally trending upward;
• 2014 (64)
• 2013 (48) Community Engagement Division (CED) established 2011; Liberal
• 2012 (76) Education Division Renamed Liberal Education/Engineering and
• 2011 (69) Society Division (LEES) in 2011
• 2010 (57)
• 2009 (47)
• 2008 (40) Another large increase here that varies but is sustained through 2010
• 2007 (51)
• 2006 (34)
• 2005 (34) A steady increase 2000-2005; comprehensive assessments of the
• 2004 (33) potential and impact of EC2000 begin to appear (Engineer of 2020,
• 2003 (22) Liberal Education in Twenty-first Century Engineering)
• 2002 (22)
• 2001 (23)
• 2000 (14)
• 1999 (9) EC2000 beyond pilot stage, becoming a
• 1998 (10) concern for all engineering educators;
• 1997 (2)
ABET begins the radical Entrepreneurship and Engineering
• 1996 (4)
redesign process that Innovation Division (ENT) established
culminated in EC2000. 2000.

The table below identifies the outcomes (d-j of Criterion 3 and Criterion 4) that require or
are significantly enhanced by expertise that falls outside of engineering as traditionally taught
and understood. Only four of the Criterion 3 outcomes (a-c and k) can be developed through
STEM disciplines alone. At least implicitly, the new criteria put the STEM disciplines in
minority status. The hard/soft distinction, then, shifted the focus to epistemological hierarchy and
supported the dominant core-periphery mental model (Downey 2005).

The ABET criteria have been modified recently and now consist of a shorter list of
outcomes, some of which collapse one or more of the items in the table. The original list is
included here because of the detail it provides, the competencies are essentially the same, and
these were in use for most of the period covered in this study.

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Table 1: EC2000 Outcomes That at Least Partly Fall Outside of Engineering as
Traditionally Taught and Understood

ABET Criterion 3 Outcomes and Assessment

The description of each outcome as provided by ABET appears in bold type. The elaboration that
follows interprets the outcome as it can be developed in non-technical courses, including but not
limited to communication.
(d) an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams: appreciate perspectives that differ from
your own and integrate your individual expertise and views with those of other people of both
technical and non-technical backgrounds

(e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems: identify, formulate,
articulate, and solve engineering problems; think critically about and reflect on the processes of
problem definition, engineering design, and project management

(f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility: understand professional and

ethical responsibilities as they apply to both particular engineering projects and to the engineering
profession as a whole

(g) an ability to communicate effectively with both expert and non-expert audiences

(h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global
and societal context: understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and social context
and use that understanding in the formulation of engineering problems, solutions, and designs

(i) a recognition of the need for, and ability to engage in, lifelong learning: the development of
the research and analytical skills necessary to engage in lifelong learning and understand why it is
necessary
(j) a knowledge of contemporary issues: recognize and analyze the role that technology and
engineering play in important contemporary issues and use a knowledge of social and historical
context to put contemporary issues in perspective

ABET Criterion 4 Outcomes and Assessment

As part of the major design experience, consider and integrate economic, sustainability,
ethical, political, health and safety and sociopolitical issues into the design, implementation,
and management of technological systems: systematically explore the full range of non-technical
issues that are part of the problem addressed by the project and might arise in the design,
implementation, and management of technological systems that make up the context of the project

We can gain additional insight into the ways members of ASEE responded to the new
criteria by looking at (1) the proliferation of new divisions within ASEE and (2) the divisions in
which the scholarly conversation about soft skills is most prominent. Table 2 below (based on

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the frequency data) shows where the conversation on “soft skills” has been most prevalent in the
various divisions of ASEE.

Table 2. Divisions with the Most Papers on “Soft Skills”

Divisions with the Most Papers on “Soft Skills”

1996-2020
Division Number of
Papers on
“Soft Skills”
50+ Design in Engineering Education 58
Educational Research and Methods 53
Engineering Technology 58
International 54
Liberal Education/Engineering and Society 57

40+ Entrepreneurship and Engineering Innovation 2 42

First Year 48

30+ Civil 35
Electrical and Computer 37
Graduate Studies3 37
Mechanical Engineering 37
Multidisciplinary4 39

20+ Community Engagement Division 5 24

Cooperative and Experiential Education 26
Engineering Leadership Development6 29
Manufacturing 26

15+ Biomedical 16
Chemical 20
College Industry Partnerships 15
Engineering Management 16
Computers in Education7 19

Not surprisingly, the divisions in which the conversation has been most concentrated are those
not limited to a single engineering discipline, which suggests that they function as common

2 Established 2000
3 Established 2009
4 Established 2003
5 Established 2011
6 Established 2014
7 Established 2002 (no date on original bylaws; journal first published 2002; division may have formed earlier)

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ground for engineering education. Six of these divisions were established in 2000 or later. Their
emergence can be explained in part by the increasing interest in developing professional skills.
Among the divisions that focus on a particular engineering discipline, those with the most active
conversations are listed below along with their disciplinary professional society.

1. Electrical and Computer Engineering (IEEE)

2. Civil Engineering (ASCE)
3. Chemical Engineering (AIChE)
4. Mechanical Engineering (ASME)

A preliminary examination of the websites of these four professional societies suggests that they
have significant efforts underway with respect to professional skills. For example, IEEE has an
Ebook series on “soft skills.” AIChE also uses the term “soft skills.” ASCE and ASME, on the
other hand, eschew the terminology of “soft skills” and use “professional skills.”

Putting the Discourse on “Soft Skills” in Engineering in a Larger Context Using Google
Trends

Google Trends search frequency analysis provides a rough but nonetheless useful way to
trace interest in a topic over time by taking the frequency with which a term is searched as an
indication of overall interest in it. The graph below displays trends for three different search
terms: “examples of soft skills,” “soft skills engineering,” and “soft skills” as a broad category.

Figure 2. Google Trends Frequency Results March 2021

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This graph suggests three potentially significant findings. First, interest in soft skills is by no
means limited to engineering. Second, both general interest (as reflected in Google Trends)
and interest within ASEE (as reflected in PEER) grow dramatically in from 2004-2020. Third,
the interest in “examples of soft and hard skills” reflects the tendency for systematic study of
soft skills to focus on inventories (lists) rather than defining what soft skills are as a category
or concept or focusing in a systematic way on how those skills are developed.

Conclusions and Future Research

The evidence and analysis presented in this paper suggest that the terminology of “soft
skills” emerged in the context of leadership development in the military and as part of an effort
to systematically develop an evidence-based approach to cultivating those skills. Although it
has proved remarkably persistent, the terminology of “soft” vs. “hard” skills was not the result
of a deliberative process (at least there is no evidence of such a process). It seems to have been
chosen ad hoc as a readily available option whose limitations were recognized at the outset.
Interest in “soft skills” within ASEE increased dramatically as the EC2000 criteria
were implemented. It seems likely that it persists because of (1) its vague, capacious nature;
(2) the way it maintains a hierarchy of knowledge in which engineering in particular, and the
STEM disciplines more generally are at the top while also recognizing what employers want in
the engineering graduates they employ; and (3) the non-technical skills are recognized as
essential to career success in engineering.
As the title of this paper indicates, the historical narrative presented here is provisional.
Nonetheless, it provides a high-level view and the beginnings of an understanding of the
factors that contributed to increased use of the terminology “soft skills.” The documentary
evidence cited here is deserving of deeper analysis. It should be possible to identify the authors
and publications that have been important in the discourse on “soft skills.” Additionally, this
paper has skirted both the debate over what should replace the hard-soft distinction and the
relationship between the scholarly and popular press discourses on “soft skills.” There seem to
be an increasing number of businesses that purport to develop “soft skills,” and the efforts of
the various professional societies with respect to professional skills deserve mapping in greater
detail.
The longer-term goal of this project as I currently envision it is to get beyond
inventories of soft skills (of which there are many) and what appears to be perpetual discovery
of the fact that they matter so much in engineering. To develop the “soft skills” systematically,
we have many conceptual knots to untangle, including the skills-proficiencies-individual trait
relationship; the core-periphery distinction that is central to engineering education; how the
professional skills differ from the capabilities considered to be the “core” that engineering
education in the various disciplines seeks to develop; and how we can structure and assess the
efficacy of educational experiences that cultivate those capabilities. At a minimum, though, I
hope this provisional account demonstrates the validity of pursuing a historical and
philosophical inquiry into the vocabulary of “soft skills.”

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