Nxxxx Txxxxx
Candidate Number:
xxxx
Center Number:
UX155
Winter Haven Senior High
April 2023
Transcript
Transcript
Slide 1:
Hello, I am Nxxx Txxxxxx and I collaborated with Txxx Lxxxxxxx on the topic of to what
extent does technology place a negative impact on the soft skills of Generation Z. The
lenses I focused on were science, culture and ethics. My partner Txxxx focused on
environment, economics, technology and politics.
Slide 2:
In today’s competitive job market, companies have started to hold soft skills on a
pedestal. These skills include emotional intelligence, critical thinking, teamwork abilities,
work ethics, and self-motivation. These skills have more importance than hard skills
which are career specific skills. They are key to a company’s success and help increase
a company’s value which in turn increases a nations revenue. Tounsi states that in
2015, a corporate study found that soft skills were worth 88 billion pounds annually to
the United Kingdom. Generation Z learns these skills throughout life especially in
educational environments such as universities.
Slide 3:
In current times like this pandemic, technology proves itself to be beneficial in order to
help Generation Z learn skills such as independence and self-responsibility. In
universities, online learning has encouraged students to take their success into their
own hands. Students must complete their assignments timely and block out distractions
for their own growth. Nobody can tell if they are surfing the internet while attending their
lecture, but their consequences would be visible sooner or later. Learning skills of selfreliability will help them be desirable by firms making their contributions more
successful. Additionally, working from home is becoming more prevalent worldwide and
technology helps employers and employees to stay connected so a company can
continue operating.
Slide 4:
While technology does have noticeable positive impacts, without proper usage it can
greatly harm soft skills development. Having a wide range of technology available at
your fingertips instantaneously gives many sources for ethical violations. When
employees of companies perform such misconducts, it damages the work culture of the
whole company. Work culture is the general atmosphere of the company. Nowadays,
many companies are adapting to work from home practices to keep all its members
safe. When doing so the employer is presenting their trust on the employees to stay on
track and give their utmost effort on assignments as they are expected to do at work.
Often this trust is breached by many workers since at home they are not constantly
supervised and can easily spend their time surfing the internet. Additionally, the
attention span of Generation Z is becoming increasingly worse. When a problem arises,
they would rather turn to a search engine than dig deeper on their own. This was
prominent in an experiment conducted between students from America and from
Singapore. Elmore stated that when presented with a math problem, American students
gave up within 38 seconds whereas students from Singapore attempted for an hour.
This shows that regardless the distractions, students in Singapore are better taught
critical thinking skills than American students. Emotional intelligence which is also a
major category of soft skills have been declining. Manney has highlighted that seeing
numerous violent scenarios on the internet daily wires our brain to perceive that this is
normal. When entering the labor force, empathy among employees is lacking which
reduces effectiveness of teamwork skills. Members of Generation Z prefer to have a
conversation via social media apps rather than in person. This reduces their
acknowledgment for social cues such as posture and eye contact which are highly
requested by employers of all firms.
Slide 5:
Technological advancements have contributed to an extensive worldwide problem
identified as skills gap crisis. A skills gap crisis can be defined as the issue that
employers want to see certain skills in the labor force, but they are not found and are
rather scarce. One of the places with such a problem is the Middle Eastern city of
Dubai. One of the major reasons for this is the growing negative technological impact as
stated by Khamis. As stated earlier, one of the main places for Generation Z to be
developing their soft skills set is universities. If the education system fails to deliver
desirable outcomes, the skills gap crisis worsens. As seen in Dubai, Ataya says,
technological advancements have caused educational institutes to fail in teaching the
soft skill of critical thinking which most employers in Dubai are seeking. This fuels the
spreading of the skills gap crisis. Bier and McManus in their article say that in countries
of Africa, the educational system fails to help its students develop character by making
them memorize textbook definitions rather than teaching them how to apply their
knowledge and develop their skills. Passing a test is given more importance than
actually retaining the information.
Slide 6:
Skills Gap Crisis are not only found in the underdeveloped countries of Africa but also in
the highly developed country of America. In many different parts of Florida, the
extensive use of technology has created a skills gap crisis. According to the “Skills Gap
and Job Vacancy Survey”, areas such as Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville had high
gap-to-vacancy ratios. A gap-to-vacancy ratio refers to the idea that there are numerous
people who are unemployed and there are also a lot of jobs available, but the jobs
cannot be filled since the incoming labor force does not have the skills required for
them. The incoming labor force will soon be majority of Generation Z members and if
they do not acquire their needed soft skills due to all the technological distractions, they
can further worsen this ratio.
Slide 7:
One of the most prominent issues of technology is that it has become a medium for
students of all ages to cheat. During the pandemic, online schooling has seen a rise in
ethical violations during tests and assignments. Mohanty highlighted that educators in
India have caught students using unauthorized materials online during tests. The
university of Florida, the university of central Florida and many other Floridian
universities have seen that cheating is at an all-time high and educators have a difficult
time controlling it without violating privacy of the students. Getting away with it on an
educational level prompts Generation Z to continue its usage in a work environment.
This would severely go against the ethical and moral code that employers look for.
Slide 8:
In order to solve the progressing soft skills crisis in Africa, the education system should
make changes in which students are actually taught the information instead of just
memorizing it. An example of this is the university of Malaya where they have academic
programmes and short training sessions. According to Sani these helps equip students
with their needed soft skills which helps to prepare them for their choice of vocation.
Another place where technology is used to facilitate learning is Singapore. NBC news
has highlighted that Singapore makes effective use of technology by using them as
means of improving communication rather than using it to power through assignments
like American students do. Adapting to these practices will help Generation Z become
well equipped and ready to enter the labor force.
Slide 9:
In Florida, universities would be the main place to teach the skills firms most desire. It is
very crucial that Generation Z understands that technology will not always be available
to aid their problems. Therefore, courses should have content that is more based on
applying the learned material rather than writing it on a test and then forgetting it. To
demote ethical violations, universities would have to reduce pressure on students. Often
in universities, most of the courses grade depends on a final. This coerces them into
cheating, so they do not fail. Creating more frequent assignments and tests would help
relieve pressure off them.
Slide 10:
To ensure that technology does not harm the soft skills of Generation Z, a solution is to
create a course that is a semester long which will be mandated by universities. The
content of the course would depend on what soft skill is found most lacking in the area.
For instance, Dubai lacks critical thinking skills and so their course would focus on how
to develop and sharpen critical thinking skills. By having individualized curriculums, it
ensures that each area is getting the soft skills they need the most. My group decided
that to help improve work culture and environment, companies should have
questionnaires quarterly asking employees which soft skills they believe are most
lacking and using a programmed software to provide simulations to improve that skill.
The software can be developed locally which could also help create more jobs. Further
research should be conducted in the form of a survey to see what soft skills are most
lacking in an area whose data can then be used by universities to decide their course
content. Also, it should be seen if soft skills training offered by universities or companies
are more effective.
Slide 11 + 12: These are my works cited. Thank you.