Comparing educational experiences and on-the-job needs of educational software designers

Abstract

This paper reports on part of the findings of a mixed-methods study which explored the educational experiences of Computing Professionals who design and develop educational software. A particular focus is given on the gaps professionals perceive between what was covered in their formal (university) education and the skills and knowledge that have been most important to them in their professional roles. Discrepancies were found particularly in areas related to practical skills (such as testing, maintaining code over time, use of source code control and development tools), communication, critical thinking and problem solving, and strategies used to continue learning on-the-job. Participant suggestions for improving university programs focused largely on the use of large scale, complex, authentic projects of significant duration. The author recommends further consideration be given to explicitly teaching the type of self-learning skills and strategies used by experienced professionals.

The Alignment Between Formal Education and Software Design Professionals' Needs in Industry: Faculty Perception

“…As suggested in previous research and confirmed by our results, soft skills such as problem solving, teamwork, communication, and lifelong learning are crucial for graduates to become well-rounded professionals [9][10][11][12]14 . These findings are not surprising.…”

“…As discussed in our earlier work [14][15] , habits that may be construed as cheating within a traditional educational environment are considered not only good life-long learning practice, but are essential skills for success on the job by computing professionals, including, but not limited to, asking for help and feedback from mentors and peers; reusing existing code and components were possible; and finding sample design or code in books, online sources, or their own prior work to experimenting with and adapting it to their own use.…”

“…However, computing professionals who graduated from computing related programs within the last five years indicated that lifelong learning, teamwork, interpersonal, and communication skills are inconsistently emphasized in formal education. Consistent with Caskurlu and Exter (n.d.) 12 , previous research focusing on the alignment between formal education and needs of the industry also indicated that technical programs should look beyond single-domain skills and bridge disciplines that were once considered separate 11,[13][14][15][16] . This would help programs to incorporate non-technical knowledge and skills, such as communications and interpersonal skills, business strategy and applications, team/organization and management, general problem solving and critical thinking, as well as self-regulated lifelong learning skills 3,4,14,[16][17][18] .…”

“…Consistent with Caskurlu and Exter (n.d.) 12 , previous research focusing on the alignment between formal education and needs of the industry also indicated that technical programs should look beyond single-domain skills and bridge disciplines that were once considered separate 11,[13][14][15][16] . This would help programs to incorporate non-technical knowledge and skills, such as communications and interpersonal skills, business strategy and applications, team/organization and management, general problem solving and critical thinking, as well as self-regulated lifelong learning skills 3,4,14,[16][17][18] . Employers report that employees are not well prepared in terms of global knowledge, writing, critical thinking, adaptability, self-knowledge, oral communication, or quantitative reasoning 19 .…”

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“…Direct observation of developers has confirmed that these skills play a large role in daily work and present substantial challenges [2]. Surveys further have revealed that developers learn many such skills on the job, reflecting gaps between skill upon graduation and respective accumulated skill thereafter [3,4].…”