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Comparing Computing Professionals’ Perceptions of Importance of Skills and Knowledge on the Job and Coverage in Undergraduate Experiences

Comparing Computing Professionals’ Perceptions of Importance of Skills and Knowledge on the Job... This article discusses the findings of a survey of nearly 300 computing professionals who are involved in the design and/or development of software across a variety of industries. We report on the surveyed professionals’ perceptions of the importance of a range of topics and skills, and the degree to which 55 recent graduates felt that each topic or skill was emphasized in their undergraduate experience. Our findings highlight the value of breadth and flexibility in technical skills, and the universal importance of critical thinking, problem solving, on-the-job learning, and the ability to work well in cross-disciplinary teams. These findings align roughly with recommendations by the ACM/IEEE task force on computing curricula. However, the recent graduates we surveyed report inconsistent coverage of these most important areas within their degree experiences. We discuss implications for education and for future research. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) Association for Computing Machinery

Comparing Computing Professionals’ Perceptions of Importance of Skills and Knowledge on the Job and Coverage in Undergraduate Experiences

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Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 ACM
ISSN
1946-6226
eISSN
1946-6226
DOI
10.1145/3218430
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article discusses the findings of a survey of nearly 300 computing professionals who are involved in the design and/or development of software across a variety of industries. We report on the surveyed professionals’ perceptions of the importance of a range of topics and skills, and the degree to which 55 recent graduates felt that each topic or skill was emphasized in their undergraduate experience. Our findings highlight the value of breadth and flexibility in technical skills, and the universal importance of critical thinking, problem solving, on-the-job learning, and the ability to work well in cross-disciplinary teams. These findings align roughly with recommendations by the ACM/IEEE task force on computing curricula. However, the recent graduates we surveyed report inconsistent coverage of these most important areas within their degree experiences. We discuss implications for education and for future research.

Journal

ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) – Association for Computing Machinery

Published: Nov 13, 2018

Keywords: Curriculum

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