Study of the Influence of Multiple Intelligences and the use of Soft Skills in Project Write-up among IT and Non-IT Students: A Research Paper

Abstract

The present work is a follow-up of the papers presented at the Northern Arizona University, USA - “Accommodating soft skills in Software project Management” and the one presented at Salford University, Manchester, UK - “ The ontogeny of memory of learning: Natural Intelligence versus Artificial Intelligence in Information Technology Education”. Several interrogations cropped up during and after the presentation of the second paper, particularly on the conclusions, if any, that could have been drawn on the effects of soft skills, intelligence and intelligences; and if the next step would be to further investigate the impact of these on Information Technology Education. The impression that there was an urgent need to delve deeper into these factors and to find out their importance from the point of view of information technology education and other non IT fields lingered on for an appreciable length of time. In order to reply to the various unavoidable questions that arose from an analysis of the hypothetical aspects introduced in the above mentioned papers, we have tried to look into the influence of the factors related to the concepts of soft skills and intelligence in educational endeavours. In order to have an in-depth appreciation of the importance of these factors, we have solicited the involvement of both IT and Non-IT students reading in the fields of Administration and Management and Information Technology. Finding out the importance and the influence of soft skills and intelligence or intelligences became an obsession which resulted in an interesting and passionate exercise with the involvement of nearly two hundred students. We believe that, sharing the results of our findings with other colleagues would arouse further interests and trigger other more interesting research in the field.