Today, soft skills (transversal competencies) are increasingly appreciated by employers as essential skills for professional success. Likewise, these competencies are necessary to be able to operate as individuals in today’s society. In view of this situation, in the future post-COVID-19 educational model it is necessary to design training programs that promote both hard skills (specific competencies) and soft skills. This fact brings to the table the need for university teachers to have an optimal level of soft skills so that their students can acquire them. Given this situation, this paper aims to analyze the degree of acquisition of this type of competencies in American university teachers from different regions: (i) North America; (ii) Central America, and (iii) Southern Cone. To achieve this objective, it has been necessary to develop a questionnaire on the self-concept of soft skills, based on several variables: (i) gender, (ii) age range, (iii) geographic area, (iv) area of knowledge, (v) years of teaching experience, and (vi) university tenure (public-private). The questionnaire developed was based on the soft skills included in the Bochum Inventory of Personality and Competences (BIP). Results, obtained by descriptive and inferential statistical analysis of the means and deviations of the data collected from a sample of 473 participants, reflect that, in general, the American university teachers have a high self-concept about their degree of soft skills development. Although results show significant differences depending on each variable considered in this study, it can be suggested that the American university teachers are prepared to face a mixed university educational model, which promotes equally both hard skills and soft skills.

This study explores the correlations between the self-perceived socio-emotional competences of teachers of second-cycle Preprimary Education with their ability to manage the social and emotional climate of their classroom through systematic observation of CLASS-Pre-K. A sample of six classrooms of the second cycle of the preprimary education stage from the Western Territorial Area of the Community of Madrid (Spain) was used, with a total of 1,493 students and their 68 respective teachers. The results show how teachers' self-perception in emotional intelligence is directly related to a positive classroom climate. Likewise, it is observed that the classroom climate is significantly more positive in private and chartered centers than in public ones, and that it is significantly more positive in classrooms with fewer students.

Este artículo de investigación tiene como punto de partida el paradigma educativo y de mentalidad en la sociedad actual, en el que el profesorado se ha visto en la necesidad de desarrollar habilidades —también emocionales y sociales— que le ayuden a gestionar sus clases de forma positiva. El objetivo general del estudio es conocer la relación entre la formación en inteligencia emocional, que deben poseer los docentes, y su capacidad para gestionar el clima emocional y social del aula. La metodología de investigación es de tipo descriptivo. Los resultados muestran que el profesorado tiene la percepción de que no ha sido instruido en aptitudes emocionales y, por ello, siente la necesidad de ser formado en habilidades socioemocionales para poder gestionar las clases de forma positiva.

The importance of soft skills in the professional work of an engineer is becoming increasingly important, even more so since the emergence of Covid-19 boosted the digitization of all professional sectors. In order for future engineers to acquire this type of skills, it is necessary for engineering professors to have an optimal level of technical and transversal skills. This article analyzes the assessment made by a group of engineering professors about their degree of development of soft skills and describes gender gaps in these assessments. Based on a self-created survey to evaluate different families of soft skills relevant to engineering education, a sample of 284 Latin American engineering professors reported: 1) high evaluations of their soft skills and 2) the existence of gender gaps in the families of work behavior and social skills in favor of females. This gap is especially wide among participants younger than 45 and older than 65 in the social skills family. In addition, females also rate their work motivation skills higher, except in the 55–64 age range.

El uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en el mundo educativo ha ido evolucionando hacia las TAC, las TEP y las TRIC, por ello, el profesorado se ve en la necesidad de conocerlas para poderlas aplicar de forma efectiva en sus clases. En este estudio se pretende comprobar el conocimiento que tienen 489 profesores sobre los conceptos de TIC, TAC, TEP y TRIC antes y después de recibir una conferencia sobre su significado. Para ello se ha llevado a cabo un método cuantitativo comparativo aplicando una encuesta inicial y una final sobre el conocimiento de dichos conceptos. En los resultados obtenidos se ha podido comprobar que el curso ha sido positivo para mejorar el conocimiento de los docentes sobre los cuatro conceptos y la valoración de la percepción de estos.

The progress and growth of engineering and high technology make it necessary to have highly specialized and qualified engineering professionals, both in terms of professional competencies and personal skills. Engineers have a generalist training that qualifies them for professional practice in practically all technical areas of all types of companies, both in the resolution of technical problems and in the design and implementation of new technologies in the different production processes; however, throughout their professional career they must acquire new competences and skills that allow them to develop different professional challenges. In the present research, an exploratory and descriptive study is carried out with the aim of developing a taxonomy of the different profiles of engineers according to the evolution of their experience, digital competence and soft skills throughout their professional career. The Engineer 4.0 represents the convergence of traditional engineering technical skills with a deep knowledge and mastery of emerging digital technologies.