21st century skills are essential for career readiness. We investigated the development of students’ 21st century skills at a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research university: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. We designed a self-reporting questionnaire covering 14 skills and deployed it to approximately 1500 students and alumni. Respondents were asked to rate each skill based on the degree to which it was developed during their studies. Domain-general skills scored higher than STEM-specific skills or soft (interpersonal) skills, whereas STEM-specific skills scored higher than soft skills. Content analysis revealed nine methods of teaching and learning through which skills developed. The four active methods had a small effect on domain-general skills, while the five passive methods had a medium-to-large effect on these skills. Active methods had a medium-size effect on both STEM-specific and soft skills, whereas passive methods had no effect on either group. Our contribution lies in identifying and matching methods to skills.

21世纪的技能对于职业准备至关重要。我们在一所科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）研究型大学：Technion –以色列理工学院，研究了学生21世纪技能的发展。我们设计了一份涵盖14种技能的自我报告调查表，并将其部署到大约1500名学生和校友中。要求受访者根据学习过程中技能的发展程度对每种技能进行评分。领域一般技能得分高于STEM特定技能或软（人际交往）技能，而STEM特定技能得分高于软技能。内容分析揭示了九种通过技能发展的教与学方法。四种有效方法对领域通用技能的影响不大，而五种被动方法对这些技能的影响中等到很大。主动方法对STEM特定技能和软技能都有中等程度的影响，而被动方法对这两组均没有影响。我们的贡献在于确定和匹配技能的方法。