The development of professionally important qualities as a result of various activities: Learning, sport, and labour market

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to define evolution of opinions about the formation of the in-demand qualities (soft skills) in the Ukrainian labour market and the possibilities of their formation through sports based on the opinions of key participants in the market. The basis of the study is a survey of professionals (104 respondents), students (314 respondents), and schoolchildren (326 respondents). The coherence of the respondents’ answers was checked by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient and Kendall rank correlation coefficient. The correlation, factor, and cluster analyses were used in the study methods. Factor analysis allowed us to form obtained qualities into two factors (of primary and secondary importance). Using cluster analysis, all the qualities that were identified by the respondents were divided into three uniform groups. It was also proved that the clusters differ most in terms of the qualities that were named by schoolchildren, and the clusters which are the closest in terms of the qualities were highlighted by the employers. The study was conducted within the framework of new approaches to searching the tendencies and key elements of competition on the labour markets, and it complements the work (Cachón-Zagalaz et al., 2020) by including the aspects into the analysis of schoolchildren and highlighting the distinguishing aspects that are involved in their perception of in-demand qualities. The uniqueness of the qualities that were highlighted by the students who do sport and the importance of these qualities in the formation of professional competencies have been proved.