Periodic Reporting for period 1 - VERSA (Video gamEs foR Skills trAining)
Período documentado: 2021-02-01 hasta 2023-01-31
At the same time, training methods for soft or transversal skills are often outdated, driving PhD students to boredom and lack of implication. Therefore, VERSA aims to challenge the current paradigm of soft skills development at PhD level by implementing an innovative methodology for soft skills training using commercially available video games.
Thus, there is a dual scope to VERSA's approach: on the one hand, we aim to modernize the PhD programs at the partner universities by offering innovative digital tools for soft skills training in order to prove this as a consistent methodology for future use in any PhD's program curricula. On the other hand, we aim to improve the soft skills of our participants so that they have more opportunities of finding a job when they finish their doctoral studies.
Moreover, we are in the point of finishing Module 4 (Complex problem solving) and in the middle of Module 5 (Team management), so we have reached half way of the project. During this time, we have managed to implement the modules without major problems and to follow the plans that we had established at the beginning. Furthermore, we are starting to obtain the first results that seem to indicate a positive effect of the project in the soft skill development of our participants.
In this respect, we aim to have a socio-economic impact in terms of a better labour market accessibility of our PhD students as a result of their improvement in soft skills, that are highly valued for companies nowadays.