research-article

Open access

A Quantitative Study of Faculty Views on the Goals of an Undergraduate CS Program and Preparing Students for Industry

Authors:

Sander Valstar,

Sophia Krause-Levy,

William G. GriswoldAuthors Info & Claims

ICER '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research

Pages 113 - 123

https://doi.org/10.1145/3372782.3406277

Published: 07 August 2020 Publication History

Abstract

Although elements of the academia-industry gap have been studied extensively, these studies have mostly ignored the primary stakeholder for changing academia: faculty. Building on a recent qualitative study that revealed a wide range of faculty views on the gap, this study quantitatively examines faculty views through a survey on the goals of CS education, how CS programs should address the academia-industry gap, and which barriers prevent adoption of remedies. Analysis of the 249 responses reveals that a majority of faculty share common goals in supporting student preparation for a career in industry. Moreover, faculty strongly view their own institutions as the prime party responsible for student preparation for careers in both academia and industry. We also find that whereas faculty are generally in agreement on what could be improved to provide students with better industry preparation, some reported far greater barriers to implementing those improvements than others.

References

[1]

Faculty Survey. https://paperdata.page.link/faculty-survey

[2]

Gerlese S. Åkerlind. 2005. Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods. Higher Education Research & Development, Vol. 24, 4 (2005), 321--334. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360500284672

[3]

Mark Ardis, David Budgen, Gregory W Hislop, Jeff Offutt, Mark Sebern, and Willem Visser. 2015. SE 2014: Curriculum guidelines for undergraduate degree programs in software engineering. Computer 11 (2015), 106--109.

Digital Library

[4]

Andrew Begel and Beth Simon. 2008. Struggles of New College Graduates in Their First Software Development Job. In Proceedings of the 39th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 226--230. https://doi.org/10.1145/1352135.1352218

Digital Library

[5]

Gail Carmichael, Christine Jordan, Andrea Ross, and Alison Evans Adnani. 2018. Curriculum-Aligned Work-Integrated Learning: A New Kind of Industry-Academic Degree Partnership. In Proceedings of the 49th Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Technical Symposium. 586--591.

Digital Library

[6]

Secil Caskurlu, Iryna Ashby, and Marisa Exter. 2017. The Alignment Between Formal Education and Software Design Professionals' Needs in Industry: Faculty Perception. In 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. ASEE Conferences. https://peer.asee.org/28941.

[7]

Allan Collins, John Seely Brown, and Ann Holum. 1991. Cognitive apprenticeship: Making thinking visible. American educator, Vol. 15, 3 (1991), 6--11.

[8]

Michelle Craig, Phill Conrad, Dylan Lynch, Natasha Lee, and Laura Anthony. 2018. Listening to Early Career Software Developers. J. Comput. Sci. Coll., Vol. 33, 4 (April 2018), 138--149. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3199572.3199591

[9]

Stephen H. Edwards. 2003. Rethinking Computer Science Education from a Test-first Perspective (OOPSLA '03).

[10]

Kunze Florian, Boehm Stephan, and Bruch Heike. 2013. Age, resistance to change, and job performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 28, 7/8 (01 Jan 2013), 741--760. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-06--2013-0194

[11]

Sharon Gedye, Elizabeth Fender, and Brian Chalkley. 2004. Students' Undergraduate Expectations and Post-graduation Experiences of the Value of a Degree. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 28, 3 (2004), 381--396. https://doi.org/10.1080/0309826042000286956

[12]

Hisham Haddad. 2002. Post-graduate Assessment of CS Students: Experience and Position Paper. J. Comput. Sci. Coll., Vol. 18 (2002).

[13]

Charles Henderson, Andrea Beach, and Noah Finkelstein. 2011. Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM instructional practices: An analytic review of the literature. Journal of research in science teaching, Vol. 48, 8 (2011), 952--984.

[14]

Charles Henderson and Melissa H Dancy. 2007. Barriers to the use of research-based instructional strategies: The influence of both individual and situational characteristics. Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education Research, Vol. 3, 2 (2007), 020102-1-020102-14.

[15]

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula and IEEE Computer Society. 2013. Computer Science Curricula 2013: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Science. ACM, New York, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.1145/2534860

Digital Library

[16]

Amanpreet Kapoor and Christina Gardner-McCune. 2019. Understanding CS Undergraduate Students' Professional Development Through the Lens of Internship Experiences. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '19). ACM, 852--858. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287408

Digital Library

[17]

Raina Khatri, Charles Henderson, Renée Cole, Jeffrey E Froyd, Debra Friedrichsen, and Courtney Stanford. 2016. Designing for sustained adoption: A model of developing educational innovations for successful propagation. Physical Review Physics Education Research, Vol. 12, 1 (2016), 010112.

[18]

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge university press.

[19]

Wolfgang Lehmann. 2009. University as vocational education: working-class students' expectations for university. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 30, 2 (2009), 137--149. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690802700164

[20]

Clayton Lewis. 2007. Attitudes and Beliefs About Computer Science Among Students and Faculty. SIGCSE Bull., Vol. 39, 2 (June 2007), 37--41. https://doi.org/10.1145/1272848.1272880

Digital Library

[21]

Clayton Lewis, Michele H. Jackson, and William M. Waite. 2010. Student and Faculty Attitudes and Beliefs About Computer Science. Commun. ACM, Vol. 53, 5 (May 2010), 78--85. https://doi.org/10.1145/1735223.1735244

Digital Library

[22]

Marcia A. Mardis, Jinxuan Ma, Faye R. Jones, Chandrahasa R. Ambavarapu, Heather M. Kelleher, Laura I. Spears, and Charles R. McClure. 2018. Assessing alignment between information technology educational opportunities, professional requirements, and industry demands. Education and Information Technologies, Vol. 23, 4 (01 Jul 2018), 1547--1584. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-017--9678-y

[23]

Jacob Perrenet. 2009. Differences in Beliefs and Attitudes About Computer Science Among Students and Faculty of the Bachelor Program. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE '09). ACM, 129--133. https://doi.org/10.1145/1562877.1562920

Digital Library

[24]

Anne-Kathrin Peters, Anders Berglund, Anna Eckerdal, and Arnold Pears. 2015. Second Year Computer Science and IT Students' Experience of Participation in the Discipline. In Proceedings of the 15th Koli Calling Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli Calling '15). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 68--76. https://doi.org/10.1145/2828959.2828962

Digital Library

[25]

R. Pham, S. Kiesling, L. Singer, and K. Schneider. 2016. Onboarding inexperienced developers: struggles and perceptions regarding automated testing. Software Quality Journal, Vol. 25, 4 (2016), 1239--1268. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11219-016--9333-7

[26]

Alex Radermacher and Gursimran Walia. 2013. Gaps Between Industry Expectations and the Abilities of Graduates. In Proceeding of the 44th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 525--530. https://doi.org/10.1145/2445196.2445351

Digital Library

[27]

Alex Radermacher, Gursimran Walia, and Dean Knudson. 2014. Investigating the Skill Gap Between Graduating Students and Industry Expectations. In Companion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE Companion 2014). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 291--300. https://doi.org/10.1145/2591062.2591159

Digital Library

[28]

Mehran Sahami and Steve Roach. 2014. Computer science curricula 2013 released. Commun. ACM, Vol. 57, 6 (2014), 5--5.

Digital Library

[29]

Zalia Shams. 2013. Automated Assessment of Students' Testing Skills for Improving Correctness of Their Code (SPLASH '13).

[30]

Kim Bartel Sheehan. 2001. E-mail Survey Response Rates: a Review. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 6, 2 (01 2001). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083--6101.2001.tb00117.x JCMC621.

[31]

Sulayman K. Sowe, Ioannis Stamelos, and Ignatios Deligiannis. 2006. A Framework for Teaching Software Testing using F/OSS Methodology. In Open Source Systems, Ernesto Damiani, Brian Fitzgerald, Walt Scacchi, Marco Scotto, and Giancarlo Succi (Eds.). Springer US, Boston, MA, 261--266.

[32]

Bjarne Stroustrup. 2010. What Should We Teach New Software Developers? Why? Vol. 53 No. 1. Commun. ACM (2010), 40--42.

[33]

Sander Valstar, Sophia Krause-Levy, Alexandra L. Macedo, William G. Griswold, and Leo Porter. 2020. Faculty Views on the Goals of an Undergraduate CS Education and the Academia-Industry Gap. In Proceedings of the 51st Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Technical Symposium. 577--583.

Digital Library

[34]

Lev Vygotsky. 1978. Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the development of children, Vol. 23, 3 (1978), 34--41.

[35]

Anna Wilson, Susan Howitt, Pam Roberts, Gerlese Åkerlind, and Kate Wilson. 2013. Connecting expectations and experiences of students in a research-immersive degree. Studies in Higher Education, Vol. 38, 10 (2013), 1562--1576. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.633163

Cited By

Tran MFiesler C(2024)"It's Not Exactly Meant to Be Realistic": Student Perspectives on the Role of Ethics In Computing Group ProjectsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671109(517-526)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671109
Redd BTang YZiv HPatil S(2024)Layering Sociotechnical Cybersecurity Concepts Within Project-Based LearningProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671093(406-418)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671093
Arunachalam NLunn SWeiss MLiu JNarasimhan GStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Foot in the Door: Developing Opportunities for Computing Undergraduates to Gain Industry ExperienceProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630857(74-80)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630857
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

A Quantitative Study of Faculty Views on the Goals of an Undergraduate CS Program and Preparing Students for Industry
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Computer science education
        Software engineering education

Recommendations

Faculty Views on the Goals of an Undergraduate CS Education and the Academia-Industry Gap
SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Previous work has found that recent computer science graduates often experience difficulty transitioning into their new roles in industry due to a significant gap between their academic experiences and industry's expectations. Although multiple studies ...
Exploring the Participation of CS Undergraduate Students in Industry Internships
SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Industry internships offer CS students an opportunity to gain authentic disciplinary experiences, evaluate self-interests, and secure future employment. However, little is empirically known about CS students' participation in industry internships and ...
Design and Evaluation of "The Missing CS Class," a Student-led Undergraduate Course to Reduce the Academia-industry Gap
SIGCSE 2022: Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 1

One notable part of the academia-industry gap is the deficiency in computing ecosystem literacy, which may result in college graduates exhibiting little technical knowledge of software development tools and practices commonly used in industry. This ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ICER '20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research

August 2020

364 pages

ISBN:9781450370929

DOI:10.1145/3372782

General Chairs:
Anthony Robins
University of Otago, New Zealand
,
Adon Moskal
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand
,
Amy J. Ko
University of Washington, United States
,
Renée McCauley
College of Charleston, United States
,
Program Chairs:
Anthony Robins
University of Otago, New Zealand
,
Amy J. Ko
University of Washington, United States

Copyright © 2020 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

Sponsors

SIGCSE: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 07 August 2020

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Funding Sources

National Science Foundation

Conference

ICER '20

Sponsor:

SIGCSE

ICER '20: International Computing Education Research Conference

August 1 - 5, 2020

Virtual Event, New Zealand

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 189 of 803 submissions, 24%

Upcoming Conference

ICER 2025

Sponsor:
sigcse

ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research

August 3 - 6, 2025

Charlottesville , VA , USA

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

7
Total Citations
View Citations
1,222
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)548
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)32

Reflects downloads up to 22 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Tran MFiesler C(2024)"It's Not Exactly Meant to Be Realistic": Student Perspectives on the Role of Ethics In Computing Group ProjectsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671109(517-526)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671109
Redd BTang YZiv HPatil S(2024)Layering Sociotechnical Cybersecurity Concepts Within Project-Based LearningProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671093(406-418)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671093
Arunachalam NLunn SWeiss MLiu JNarasimhan GStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Foot in the Door: Developing Opportunities for Computing Undergraduates to Gain Industry ExperienceProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630857(74-80)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630857
Hastings EOjha VAustriaco BKarahalios KBailey B(2023)Composing Team Compositions: An Examination of Instructors' Current Algorithmic Team Formation PracticesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100967:CSCW2(1-24)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610096
Lau SGuo P(2023)From "Ban It Till We Understand It" to "Resistance is Futile": How University Programming Instructors Plan to Adapt as More Students Use AI Code Generation and Explanation Tools such as ChatGPT and GitHub CopilotProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3568813.3600138(106-121)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568813.3600138
Shah A(2023)Improving Students’ Programming Processes using Cognitive Apprenticeship MethodsProceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 210.1145/3568812.3603458(102-106)Online publication date: 7-Aug-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3568812.3603458
Sadik OOttenbreit-Leftwich A(2023)Understanding U.S. secondary computer science teachers’ challenges and needsComputer Science Education10.1080/08993408.2023.2209474(1-33)Online publication date: 4-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2023.2209474

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents