Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices
In 2001 the “McCracken group”, through a multi-institutional study, concluded that many students finishing their introductory programming courses could not program due to a lack of problem solving skills. In 2004 Lister established that students have a fragile grasp of skills to read and interpret c...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
LINK Centre, School of Literature Language and Media (SLLM)
2015-12-01
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| Series: | The African Journal of Information and Communication |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20329 |
| _version_ | 1818684410713604096 |
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| author | Guillaume Nel Liezel Nel Johannes Cronje |
| author_facet | Guillaume Nel Liezel Nel Johannes Cronje |
| author_sort | Guillaume Nel |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In 2001 the “McCracken group”, through a multi-institutional study, concluded that many students finishing their introductory programming courses could not program due to a lack of problem solving skills. In 2004 Lister established that students have a fragile grasp of skills to read and interpret code. Humphrey suggests that educators must shift their focus from the programs that the students create to the data of the processes the students use. This paper addresses the problem of poor performing students through an investigation of their quality appraisal techniques (QATs) and development processes. Firstly, a survey was conducted to determine the current software development practices used by a group of undergraduate Computer Science students. Numeric data collected revealed that the current practices used by the majority of students would not be sufficient to produce quality programs. Secondly, a case study was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the various factors that are likely to influence students’ intention to use QATs. Analysis of numeric data collected through a survey revealed that students’ intentions to use QATs are driven by ease of use, compatibility, usefulness, result demonstrability, subjective norm and career consequences. Thirdly, an experiment was conducted to determine students’ perceptions on the use of process measurement data to improve their current software development practices. Analysis of numeric and narrative data revealed that performance measurement data could provide students with useful information to adopt proper development practices. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T10:50:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-5353ed5cab42481b828fdabe81922468 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2077-7205 2077-7213 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T10:50:12Z |
| publishDate | 2015-12-01 |
| publisher | LINK Centre, School of Literature Language and Media (SLLM) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The African Journal of Information and Communication |
| spelling | doaj.art-5353ed5cab42481b828fdabe819224682022-12-21T21:52:00ZengLINK Centre, School of Literature Language and Media (SLLM)The African Journal of Information and Communication2077-72052077-72132015-12-01153850https://doi.org/10.23962/10539/20329Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices Guillaume Nelhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-1750-0960Liezel Nelhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-6739-9285Johannes Cronjehttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-9838-4609In 2001 the “McCracken group”, through a multi-institutional study, concluded that many students finishing their introductory programming courses could not program due to a lack of problem solving skills. In 2004 Lister established that students have a fragile grasp of skills to read and interpret code. Humphrey suggests that educators must shift their focus from the programs that the students create to the data of the processes the students use. This paper addresses the problem of poor performing students through an investigation of their quality appraisal techniques (QATs) and development processes. Firstly, a survey was conducted to determine the current software development practices used by a group of undergraduate Computer Science students. Numeric data collected revealed that the current practices used by the majority of students would not be sufficient to produce quality programs. Secondly, a case study was conducted to gain a deeper understanding of the various factors that are likely to influence students’ intention to use QATs. Analysis of numeric data collected through a survey revealed that students’ intentions to use QATs are driven by ease of use, compatibility, usefulness, result demonstrability, subjective norm and career consequences. Thirdly, an experiment was conducted to determine students’ perceptions on the use of process measurement data to improve their current software development practices. Analysis of numeric and narrative data revealed that performance measurement data could provide students with useful information to adopt proper development practices.http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20329problem solvingsoftware development processquality appraisal techniquespersonal software processundergraduate education |
| spellingShingle | Guillaume Nel Liezel Nel Johannes Cronje Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices The African Journal of Information and Communication problem solving software development process quality appraisal techniques personal software process undergraduate education |
| title | Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices |
| title_full | Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices |
| title_fullStr | Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices |
| title_full_unstemmed | Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices |
| title_short | Attributes Contributing to Students’ Use of Quality Software Development Practices |
| title_sort | attributes contributing to students use of quality software development practices |
| topic | problem solving software development process quality appraisal techniques personal software process undergraduate education |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20329 |
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