Soft Skills and ICT Tools for Final Qualification Assessment in Universities of Ukraine and India in COVID-19 Framework

The global pandemic and subsequent quarantine measures and restrictions have posed an array of challenges to the structure and procedure of university summative assessment process. Qualification assessment for Foreign Languages major programs is a strict regimen that involves different stages (oral and written exams, final project viva, internal and external review). This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the practices of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (Kyiv, Ukraine) and International Business School (Hyderabad, India) digital qualification assessment for students of European (French, Italian, Spanish, English, German) and Asian (Mandarin, Japanese) Languages major programs, employed in the year 2020 due to quarantine measures. The survey and analysis of different ICT tools is used to translate real life qualification assessment practices into online blended format. The investigation identifies various groups of applied digital skills and soft skills, utilized through qualification assessment process by primary subjects (students). The choice of the considered cases of university Final Qualification Assessment for Foreign Languages major programs is informed by the need to estimate similar and divergent socio-cultural parameters of digital literacy development and application in multi-cultural context. Comparison is provided for integral and differential parameters of Final Qualification Assessment in the universities of Ukraine and India under survey.


Introduction
The global pandemic and subsequent quarantine measures and restrictions have posed an array of challenges to the structure and procedure of university summative assessment process. Qualification assessment for Foreign Languages major programs in particular is a strict regimen that involves different stages, requiring interoperability of soft and hard skills (oral and written exams, final project viva, internal and external review). This study objective is to critically review the educational and communicative of framework Digital Final Qualification Assessment at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University (Kyiv, Ukraine) and International Business School (Hyderabad, India) for students of European (French, Italian, Spanish, English, German) and Oriental (Mandarin Chinese, Japanese) Languages major programs, employed in the year 2020 due to quarantine measures. The survey and analysis of different ICT tools and necessary applied skills is used to assess the translation of real life qualification assessment practices into online blended format. The investigation also seeks to identify various groups of applied digital skills and collaboration skills, utilized through qualification assessment process by primary subjects (students) in Eastern Europe and Asia. The choice of the considered cases of university Final Qualification Assessment for Foreign Languages major programs is informed by the need to estimate similar and divergent socio-cultural parameters of digital literacy development and application in multicultural context. The global pandemic of COVID-19 can be considered a black swan scenario for various spheres of social and economic life, including education. The black swan theory is a metaphor to describe an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect on society, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight (Taleb, 2010). In the educational sphere, according to the study estimations, the result of the COVID-19 pandemic development was the need to take quick action worldwide in order to achieve such desirable results: a) To adapt the existent educational scenarios to digital, remote and blended formats; www.psychologyandeducation.net b) To boost ICT competence and digital literacy of all participants of the educational process.

Literature Review
The study elaboration premise included identification of ICT competency principles, derivative of 21 st  -Acts creatively to analyze skills gaps; elaborates specific requirements and identifies potential sources for training provision. Has specialist knowledge of the training market and establishes a feedback mechanism to assess the added value of alternative training programs.
-Monitors and addressees the development needs of individuals and teams.

Final Qualification Assessment as an Educational Activity: Profiling
Qualification assessment for Foreign Languages major programs is a mandatory, rigorous procedure that involves different stages of foreign language acquisition skills assessment (oral and written exams, final project viva, internal and external review). The generic form of summative state qualification of students in countries of Europe and Asia is defined by the state standards of education and is reflected in the curricula of the Free Economic Zone. Usually state qualification has two forms, combined or separate: 1) State exam; 2) Defense (viva) of qualification (bachelor's or master's) paper. State standards of education in countries of Europe and Asia typically provide for the existence and observance of rules and requirements for the procedure of Final Qualification Assessment (Law 2019; CCS 2015). Moreover, the defense of the qualification work contains propaedeutic procedures designed to obtain the basis for admission of students to the defense. The qualification assessment regimen was adapted to digital format as a framework (a legal procedure that results in the degree confirmation of a student), the string of consecutive activities according to the legal procedure described in the profile above, the "ritual" scenario (and experience for the student that is emotionally uplifting and somber in nature, connects with the traditions of the university culture of Europe

Data Analysis and Results
The overall digital qualification assessment experience on the scale of 1 to 5 was defined as mostly agreeable (4) by 50% of respondents, most agreeable (5) by 29% of respondents and less agreeable (3) by 17% of respondents of Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine. It's worth noting that the digital activities got overall rankings of 5-4 from respondents of European languages programs and 4-2 from respondents of Oriental languages programs. Respondents from IBS (India) evaluate digital qualification assessment experience predominantly as less agreeable (3) -48,5% and mostly agreeable (4) -25,8%. The respondents from Ukraine and India identified all the ICT digital tools that they have to employ the most in digital qualification assessment process (Figure 2). The highest scoring ICT tools by respondents of both European and Oriental language programs at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine were:  e-mail (93% of respondents),  Google services -combined (76% of respondents),  videoconferencing services (84% of respondents),  social media platforms (77% of respondents),  automated testing systems and learning management systems (31% of respondents).  The ranking 1-5 of the ICT tools employed through digital qualification assessment process yields following tools getting the highest scoring (5) among all ICT tools identified and used by respondents in Ukraine: email services; google forms; video conferencing services; screen sharing services; Microsoft Office tool-kit and various social media platforms. Respondents from India gave the following ICT tools the highest scoring (5): e-mail services; Android Apps; Microsoft Office tool-kit; social media platforms (Table 1).  Formative assessment as a type of activity features but does not dominate evaluation of ICT tools used qualification assessment process. The following technical and user requirements, most prominent for ICT/digital tools employed throughout the digital qualification assessment process were identified ( Figure 5) In and of itself such discrepancy is indicative of various levels of digital literacy in academia in different countries, as is corroborated by data presented further (Fig. 5-7).

Limitations and Future Studies
The survey results were limited to the number of respondents, who underwent Final Qualification procedures in European and Oriental Languages programs in the timespan of spring semester, 2020, both in Ukraine and India. The benchmarking data has been subsequently collected in the winter semester of 2020 across the proportional sample of respondents to identify the progress in soft skills development and digital skills evolution after a full year of COVID-19 online education measures for European and Oriental Languages programs. The survey results will be furthered and elaborated in assessment of soft and digital skills adaptability for separate groups of Final Qualification Assessment participants (students of foreign languages programs in countries of Europe and Asia, Assessment board members, staff members, reviewers) according to roles and tasks performed, as well as according to age and entry digital literacy level in universities of Europe and Asia.

Conclusion
Communication, collaboration and team work are evaluated as crucial interdisciplinary skills in various combinations within the scenario of digital Final Qualification Assessment. This results corroborate the cross-domain correspondence between communicative competence and ICT competence components, adapted for Liberal Arts. Namely. The following digital communicative components prove indispensable for all participants of Final Qualification Assessment in digital format: participation in group ICT initiatives, creating elearning tasks, system using of ICT, presentation to the community the results of one's own research activities through the use of ICT.