Table 2.

Themes related to soft skills and main results.

Soft Skills Challenges and Gaps
[42]—Finland and Italy	IT engineering graduates have technical talents but struggle with social and communication skills. Cooperation, relationships, and expectations all present difficulties for recent graduates.
[43]—Spain	Remote learning affects soft skill development, including technological challenges, learning environments, and interpersonal skills.
[44]—Morocco	The relevance of soft skills is emphasized in the correlation between self-learning flipped classrooms and educational performance.
[45]—Portugal	As a result of COVID-19, remote learning has become a phenomenon, including technical difficulties, learning circumstances, and interpersonal skills.
[46]—Ireland	Concerns about job opportunities and the need for the early incorporation of soft skills into higher education curricula because of the recent pandemic.
[47]—Malaysia	Dominant elements of soft communication and teamwork skills are high and are a bonus for employment. However, there are weaknesses in other aspects of soft skills.
[48]—Scotland and USA	Soft skills elements are recommended for real-world professionalism, collaboration, and problem-solving. The teamwork produced interpersonal communication, dealing with frustration, and finding solutions.
[49]—24 countries	A curriculum design for IT courses must include teamwork and software project management. IT companies are unwilling to retrain new graduates.
[50]—Tanzania	Lack of cooperation between universities and industries. Regular educational curriculum reviews are a necessity for improving quality assurance.
Industry-Specific Soft Skills
[51]—Thailand	IT expertise and academics can help to develop curricula to improve career chances. Educational institutions show a lack of awareness of industry requirements.
[52]—Portugal	Connect the development of hard and soft skills for success in informatics engineering. The emphasis is on creativity, self-evaluation, autonomy, and critical thinking.
[53]—Turkey	Top-tier cybersecurity courses focusing on soft skills for managerial roles are required. Tailoring education is important for industry demands.
[54]—Indonesia	Hard and soft skills must align with business skills. Lack of competence by new graduates in the IT field.
[55]—India	The new technology developments of AI, cloud computing, robotics, IoT, Big Data, and 3D printing are fewer skills without soft skills elements.
[56]—USA	The hard skills of technical experts are paradoxical to the interpersonal soft skills, habits, and personal quality. Ethics and communication skills are considered of high value in system design in an industry.
[57]—China	The company’s production in the working environment correlated with the performance of employees and employee satisfaction.
[58]—Spain	The value of soft skills in university education influences students’ success in entrepreneurship.
Educational Approaches and Strategies
[59]—Nigeria	The soft skills of technical students are improved by project-based learning (PBL). Soft skills elements suffer as a result of ICT.
[60]—Indonesia	Online platforms and seminars support students in improving their psychological readiness and communication skills.
[61]—Malaysia	TESL program is perceived and developed for higher employability and soft skills. Altering the educational curriculum for (HEIs) is a necessity.
[62]—Poland and Ireland	Multinational, Intercultural, Multidisciplinary and Intensive (MIMI) technique is an attempt to improve teamwork in computer science courses.
[63]—Indonesia	Despite the strong correlation between these two elements, motivation is more effective than leadership for IT students in entrepreneurial aspects.
[47]—USA	Applying team-based learning (TBL) to leverage and increase soft skills. TBL improves conceptual and collaborative learning as teamwork scores are higher than individual work.
[34]—Ukraine	Physical education (PE) assists IT students in developing social quality skills, decision making, collaboration and teamwork. Physical activity classes support mental status and cognitive skills.
[64]—Slovakia	Soft skills have a significant effect on staff at academic centers of education. Self-determination by individual students that show the ability to communicate, interact, and solve issues. Academics and curriculum designers must know emotional self-regulation to cooperate and resolve conflicts.
[65]—Italy	The more involved students are with the university’s courses, the greater their desire to gain better academic careers.
[66]—Croatia	The neuromarketing approach using eye-tracking elements in online learning can predict students’ behavior and engagement process. It can improve certain skills of the behavior of students in HE institutions.
Global Trends and General Soft Skills
[67]—Australia and UK	Results are tailored to job requirements, emphasizing personal knowledge, critical thinking, and innovation.
[68]—USA	It is a comparison of face-to-face versus synchronous approaches for teaching operating systems.
[69]—Malaysia	Interpersonal, intrapersonal, and business abilities are all required for work in the engineering field.
[70]—Israel	Passive methods have more of an effect on active methods. Matching different methods indicates different outcomes.
[71]—not specified	The roadmap model provides knowledge on designing curriculum-based complex problem-solving for CS/IT students.
[72]—Caribbean (Jamaica)	eMeetings for students to improve collaborative group-work assignments. Experience gained during student engagements in teamwork, communication, and problem-solving ultimately assists students in work placements.
[73]—Malaysia	The soft skills gap has raised alarms among industries of universities providing inexperienced workforce. Lack of communication, problem-solving, and teamwork creates a barrier for new graduates entering a job environment.
[74]—Malaysia	Communication, problem-solving, and teamwork have significant effects on soft skills integration. These elements improve employment chances.
[75]—USA, Germany and China	The demand for human skills by the industry is increasing because of the undersuppling of skilful science graduates for the job market.
Technological Integration and Soft Skills
[76]—Italy	Soft skills integration into hardware and software solutions increases student capability.
[77]—Italy	Universities must engage in monitoring practices and develop learning to improve soft skills. Soft skills can help university transformation.
[78]—Malaysia	Educational institutions must provide further training on soft skills during uncertainty and complex situations such as pandemics. Training students on self-management skills.
[79]—Spain	The authors developed a practical framework in specific knowledge to motivate students in decision making using gamification principles. Motivational factors are the main key. Activity simulation in education adds a motivational value to knowledge and strengthens soft skills.
[80]—Italy	The concept of pedagogy transforms learners into leaders. Empowers student’s achievements in soft skills factors of creativity, cooperation, and redesigning projects.
[81]—Romania	SKILLS+ projects assist the eLearning process. Various soft skills techniques are useful in implementing ICT in the education sector and micro-firms to succeed.