Soft Skills and Educational Technologies: Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This article carried out a systematic review of the literature relating educational technologies and socio-emotional skills, for this, the evidence platform SUMARIZE was used. Searches were conducted in 13 databases, in which 238 articles were found, after reading a summary of these, 25 articles were selected for full reading, in which 10 were accepted for systematic review. The concept of educational technology considered here is that of a broad scope: it is based on "usual" approaches such as those related to digitization (virtual environments for example), as well as the expanded perspective on training and practices for educational agents. The synthesis of the studies allows us to observe a diverse spectrum of approaches which is still in development. It is also noted the breadth of the concept of educational technology taken here as a basis and which moves from usual approaches such as virtual learning environments to the validation of scales and specific training for educational agents. Therefore, there is a polysemy of meanings about the theme, which creates obstacles to evidence- based production. The findings of this study show that the increase in the discourse of public educational policies about the relevance of the development of socioemotional skills considered crucial to the promotion of success in school and in life and to the integral development of the individual occurred in a disarticulated way with the advances of investigations in area, and reiterate the gap between academic and everyday school knowledge. Therefore, studies of this nature, with a clear definition of the constructs are not only pertinent, but also urgent.