Socio-emotional skills: perceptions and meanings from the perspective of university students

Abstract

This work presents the partial results (phase 1: diagnostic) of a research and intervention project aimed at implementing strategies for the development of socio-emotional skills in undergraduate students to motivate them to learn English in a public state university in Mexico. The purpose of the diagnostic phase documented here was to describe the profile of the 36 students who participated in the project about the perceptions and meaning that they attributed to socio-emotional skills. This is an exploratory mixed method design study. The main results indicate that students positively identify and value the six socio-emotional skills explored. However, self-knowledge, self-regulation and collaboration showed a low level of development. Conclusions highlight the importance of defining strategies for the development of this type of skills in addition to supporting them with sound technical and methodological diagnostics.