As construction workers progress through their career through promotion their managerial responsibility tends to increase, without the necessary skills to manage and lead workers. they tend to therefore rely on the management experience they have personally received. The SSHH project aims to develop construction workers initial managerial skills through on-line ‘scenarios’ by focusing on transferable ‘soft skills’ (leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving) rather than technical knowledge. It is therefore aimed at site workers who are starting to manage people either as a team leader, site foreman or site manager. SSHH uses innovative learning through on-line training, based on ‘real-life’ construction situations, to promote the transferable competencies. The project partners in 6 countries will be working together to create the training material in different languages to test on 180 trainers and workers within the construction industry, before a wider dissemination to around 1250 delegates at national workshops and then being available through on-line access in each partner country through the project web-site. The actual course consists of training scenarios relating to leadership, communication, teamwork, problem solving. each containing up to 3 stages of progression with multiple choice decisions to be made to allow progress to each new stage. Each training scenario comprises of:-- Between 20-40 short video clips, each between 30 seconds - 1 minute, depending on the number of multiple choices per stage.- Multiple choice decision questions to be selected at each stage.- 1 correct sequence, linked to the video clips and questions, showing the reasoning for the correct choices to be made at each stage in reference to the soft skill.A score within a predetermined range boundary will indicate to the the trainee their level of understanding and ability to make clear decisions linked to the particular soft skill. Areas for consideration and development will also be provided on the screen to the trainee linked to this particular soft skill. The methodology used will include a pre-production phase to establish the the scenarios in terms of content quality and contextual appropriateness for each partner country. Production phase of the videos clips for each scenario. A post-production phase of editing and setting up the videos and questions together. Finally, the training material will be tested on trainers and apprentices in 5 partner countries. The results from the testing will evaluate the learning taking place through the training material and where that could be used by the apprentice in their current or future employment. The initial impact will concentrate on the apprentices who take part in the testing process in terms of the transfer of the skills learnt from the training process into their actual real-life work situations. The final set of complete training material will be available through the project web-site for all construction apprentices in the partner countries to use.
Following the construction industry skills audit by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) in 2011 one of conclusions that came out of the report was that soft skills such as leadership, team work and management skills are lacking within the industry. The EQAVET Working group on the quality assurance in adult learning also identified the importance of delivering soft skill as a vital quality dimension of VET programmes. The report also observed that teaching learning skills was more experience based and should be reinforced through a person’s lifetime. Project coordinator, Coventry University, has been using the experiential learning approach when teaching soft skills for their construction courses students in the university’s simulation centre. Students are put in groups and placed in the real-life construction site office set up. Scenarios are played out using actors and the whole process is monitored by tutoring staff. The semi-immersive process fully utilises an experiential process. The Soft Skills for Hard Hats (SSHH) project objective was to provide an online learning tool based on the real-life situations to complement and aid the teaching of soft skills in construction industry. The aim of the tool was to enhance VET training provisions in delivering key competences employers need as they progress in their career within the construction industry. The project partnership consisted of 7 partners from 6 European countries: United Kingdom: Coventry University (CU)(lead partner) – Higher education institution Germany: Berufsförderungswerk der Bauindustrie NRW gGmbH (BFW-NRW) – VET provider Italy: Centro Edile Andrea Palladio (CEAP) -VET provider Bildungszentren des Baugewerbes e. V. (BZB) -VET provider Netherlands: Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL)- Higher Education institution Spain: Fundación Laboral de la Construcción (FLC)- promoter of VET Slovenia: Gospodarska Zbornica Slovenije (GZS)- Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia Project partners brought a mixture of different experiences and competences necessary to deliver this project successfully in terms of construction knowledge, language and IT on-line learning skills . The soft skills targeted in this project were defined as a result of research at the application stage and were: teamwork, communication, leadership and problem-solving. The final output of the project is an open-access, online, interactive learning tool in five languages consisting of 5 scenarios for each defined soft skill. Every scenario was set up through 3 stages of progression dependant on learner’s multiple-choice decision at each stage. At the beginning of each scenario, and before using the tool the learner was presented with guidance notes related to the skill addressed in that scenario. At the end of the learner’s individual “journey” through the scenario written feedback was provided. The online tool is aimed at key target audiences: apprentices in vocational training, apprentices in the workplace looking at management promotion, teachers and trainers involved in VET as a teaching tool for soft skills. The significant impact of the project was already evident for the duration of the project through testing and dissemination activities that have provided high level of satisfaction by users. CU has also incorporated the tool as a part of the taught modules on undergraduate construction courses and its franchised courses worldwide. Other VET partners are intending to do so too. In addition, the impact of the project has been disseminated at academic conferences worldwide. The future potential of the project output is extensive, ranging from widening the scope of languages in which the tool is available through to additional scenarios based on the same methodology. It also has potential in the methodology and model being used for the development of the scenarios in different subject areas.