A skill is the
learned ability
Abilities are powers an agent has to perform various actions. They include common abilities, like walking, and rare abilities, like performing a double backflip. Abilities are intelligent powers: they are guided by the person's intention and exec ...
to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into
domain
Domain may refer to:
Mathematics
*Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined
**Domain of definition of a partial function
**Natural domain of a partial function
**Domain of holomorphy of a function
* Do ...
-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of work, some general skills would include
time management
Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves of various demands upon a person relating to Employme ...
, teamwork and leadership, self-motivation and others, whereas domain-specific skills would be used only for a certain job. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used.
A skill may be called an art when it represents a body of knowledge or branch of learning, as in ''the art of medicine'' or ''the art of war''. Although
the arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
are also skills, there are many skills that form an art but have no connection to the
fine art
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...
s.
People need a broad range of skills to contribute to the modern economy. A joint
ASTD and
U.S. Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemploym ...
study showed that through technology, the workplace is changing, and identified 16 basic skills that employees must have to be able to change with it. Three broad categories of skills are suggested and these are technical, human, and conceptual. The first two can be substituted with hard and soft skills, respectively.
Hard skills
Hard skills, also called technical skills, are any skills relating to a specific task or situation. It involves both understanding and proficiency in such specific activity that involves methods, processes, procedures, or techniques. These skills are easily quantifiable unlike
soft skills
Soft skills, also known as power skills, common skills or core skills, are skills applicable to all professions. These include critical thinking, problem solving, public speaking, professional writing, teamwork, digital literacy, leadership, pr ...
, which are related to one's personality. These are also skills that can be or have been tested and may entail some professional, technical, or academic qualification.
Holistic Competency
Holistic competencies is an umbrella term for different types of generic skills (e.g.
critical thinking
Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgement. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis ...
,
problem-solving
Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
skills, positive values, and attitudes (e.g.
resilience, appreciation for others) which are essential for life-long learning and whole-person development.
Labor skills
Skilled workers have long had historical import (''see''
Division of labor
The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (specialisation). Individuals, organizations, and nations are endowed with, or acquire specialised capabilities, and ...
) as
electrician
An electrician is a tradesperson specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, transmission lines, stationary machines, and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance ...
s,
mason
Mason may refer to:
Occupations
* Mason, brick mason, or bricklayer, a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork, or who lays any combination of stones, bricks, cinder blocks, or similar pieces
* Stone mason, a craftsman in the stone-cut ...
s,
carpenter
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, Shipbuilding, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. ...
s,
blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from #Other metals, other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such ...
s,
baker
A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.
History
Ancient history
Since grains ha ...
s,
brewer
Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...
s,
cooper
Cooper, Cooper's, Coopers and similar may refer to:
* Cooper (profession), a maker of wooden casks and other staved vessels
Arts and entertainment
* Cooper (producers), alias of Dutch producers Klubbheads
* Cooper (video game character), in ...
s,
printer
Printer may refer to:
Technology
* Printer (publishing), a person or a company
* Printer (computing), a hardware device
* Optical printer for motion picture films
People
* Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist
* Jame ...
s and other occupations that are economically productive. Skilled workers were often politically active through their
craft guild
A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometimes ...
s.
Life skills
An ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carry out complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills).
People skills
According to the ''
Portland Business Journal
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
'', people skills are described as:
* understanding ourselves and moderating our responses
* talking effectively and
empathizing
Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, cog ...
accurately
* building relationships of
trust
Trust often refers to:
* Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality
It may also refer to:
Business and law
* Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another
* Trust (bus ...
, respect and productive interactions.
A British definition is "the ability to communicate effectively with people in a friendly way, especially in business." The term is already listed in major US dictionaries.
The term ''people skills'' is used to include both psychological skills and
social skills
A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called social ...
but is less inclusive than
life skills
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norm ...
.
Social skills
Social skills are any skills facilitating
interaction
Interaction is action that occurs between two or more objects, with broad use in philosophy and the sciences. It may refer to:
Science
* Interaction hypothesis, a theory of second language acquisition
* Interaction (statistics)
* Interactions o ...
and
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
with others.
Social rule
A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria, often taking the form of a custom.
In a social context, a convention may retain the character of an "unwritten law" of custom (for ex ...
s and
relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning such skills is called
socialization
In sociology, socialization or socialisation (see spelling differences) is the process of internalizing the norms and ideologies of society. Socialization encompasses both learning and teaching and is thus "the means by which social and cultur ...
.
Soft skills
Soft skills are a combination of interpersonal people skills, social skills, communication skills, character traits, attitudes, career attributes and emotional intelligence quotient (EQ) among others.
See also
*
Communication skills
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
*
Competence (human resources)
Competence is the set of demonstrable characteristics and skills that enable and improve the efficiency or performance of a job. The term "competence" first appeared in an article authored by R.W. White in 1959 as a concept for performance mot ...
*
Deskilling In economics, deskilling is the process by which skilled labor within an industry or economy is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semi- or unskilled workers. This results in cost savings due to lower investment in human ca ...
*
DISCO - European Dictionary of Skills and Competences
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, ...
*
Dreyfus model of skill acquisition
The Dreyfus model of skill acquisition is a model of how learners acquire skills through formal instruction and practicing, used in the fields of education and operations research. Brothers Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus proposed the model in 1980 in a ...
*
Forecast skill In the fields of forecasting and prediction, forecast skill or prediction skill is any measure of the accuracy and/or degree of association of prediction to an observation or estimate of the actual value of what is being predicted (formally, the pre ...
*
Game of skill
A game of skill or game of wits is a game where the outcome is determined mainly by mental or physical skill, rather than chance.
Alternatively, a game of chance is one where its outcome is strongly influenced by some randomizing device, such a ...
*
Online skill-based game
Online skill-based games are online games in which the outcome of the game is determined by the player's physical skill (like fast reaction or dexterity) or mental skill (logic abilities, strategic thinking, trivia knowledge). As in off-line games ...
*
Procedural knowledge
Procedural knowledge (also known as Know-how, knowing-how, and sometimes referred to as practical knowledge, imperative knowledge, or performative knowledge) is the knowledge exercised in the performance of some task. Unlike descriptive knowledge ( ...
*
Transferable skills analysis Transferable skills analysis is a set of tests or logic to determine what positions a person may fill if their previous position(s) no longer exists in the local job market, or they can no longer perform their last position(s) (e.g., because of an i ...
References
External links
American Society for Training & Development Australian National Training AuthorityNCVER's Review of generic skills for the new economySKILLS EU Research Integrated Project
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Learning
Knowledge