A Study of First Year Undergraduate Computing Students’ Experience of Learning Software Development in the Absence of a Software Development Process

Catherine Higgins, Ciaran O’Leary, Claire McAvinia, Barry Ryan

2019

Abstract

Despite the ever-growing demand for software development graduates, it is recognised that a significant barrier for increasing graduate numbers lies in the inherent difficulty in learning how to develop software. This paper presents a study that is part of a larger research project aimed at addressing the gap in the provision of educational software development processes for freshman, novice undergraduate learners, to improve proficiency levels. As a means of understanding how such learners problem solve in software development in the absence of a formal process, this study examines the experiences and depth of learning acquired by a sample set of novice, freshman university learners. The study finds that without the scaffolding of an appropriate structured development process tailored to novices, students are in danger of failing to engage with the problem solving skills necessary for software development, particularly the skill of designing solutions prior to coding.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Higgins C., O’Leary C., McAvinia C. and Ryan B. (2019). A Study of First Year Undergraduate Computing Students’ Experience of Learning Software Development in the Absence of a Software Development Process.In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-367-4, pages 231-240. DOI: 10.5220/0007655302310240

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu19,
author={Catherine Higgins and Ciaran O’Leary and Claire McAvinia and Barry Ryan},
title={A Study of First Year Undergraduate Computing Students’ Experience of Learning Software Development in the Absence of a Software Development Process},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,},
year={2019},
pages={231-240},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0007655302310240},
isbn={978-989-758-367-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 1: CSEDU,
TI - A Study of First Year Undergraduate Computing Students’ Experience of Learning Software Development in the Absence of a Software Development Process
SN - 978-989-758-367-4
AU - Higgins C.
AU - O’Leary C.
AU - McAvinia C.
AU - Ryan B.
PY - 2019
SP - 231
EP - 240
DO - 10.5220/0007655302310240