Gaps in Software Engineering Education

Gruber, Sean Michael

Gaps in Software Engineering Education

dc.contributor.author	Gruber, Sean Michael	en
dc.contributor.committeechair	Brown, Dwayne Christian	en
dc.contributor.committeemember	Shaffer, Clifford A.	en
dc.contributor.committeemember	Ellis, Margaret O.'Neil	en
dc.contributor.department	Computer Science and Applications	en
dc.date.accessioned	2023-07-11T08:00:53Z	en
dc.date.available	2023-07-11T08:00:53Z	en
dc.date.issued	2023-07-10	en
dc.description.abstract	Becoming a software engineer can be a stressful process. Software engineers are required to have a broad skill set in order to first obtain a job and then thrive in that position. Job applications will list skills that may be required or recommended but many potential applicants, especially new college graduates, may not have experience with all of the skills that are listed in a position description. The field of software engineering is constantly changing and evolving. New skills are constantly needed in a software engineering position. Education cannot keep up with the constantly changing software engineering workplace. Designing courses takes lots of time and effort. Changing courses to meet the newer and more volatile industry standards could potentially harm existing education by causing a decrease in the quality of more foundation skills. For example, a more foundational skill like good testing practices could become muddled in different languages or frameworks due to a newer language potentially not being fully understood or by the intricacies of the language. This study aims to identify the current gaps that exist between software engineering education and industry. In order to address these gaps this study proposes a platform to provide students with resources related to identified gaps. Additionally, the platform will show the students the identified gaps to see if students are interested in exploring skills related to the identified gaps. The identified gaps are derived from a survey of professional software engineers and subsequent interviews. The results of the study show that students are not only interested in learning how people in industry rank their skills, but that students are overall interested in exploring more resources whether they are directly correlated with a gap or not.	en
dc.description.abstractgeneral	Becoming a software engineer can be a stressful process. Software engineers are required to have a broad skill set in order to first obtain a job and then thrive in that position. Job applications will list skills that may be required or recommended but many potential applicants, especially new college graduates, may not have experience with all of the skills that are listed in a position description. For example, many applications will list that a specific programming language as a required skill or they may list a specific language framework that is necessary for the job. These skills may not line up with the languages or frameworks that students learn in school. The field of software engineering is constantly changing and evolving. Additionally, the field is so broad that the requirements for different positions can have great variations at different companies. New skills are constantly needed in a software engineering position. Education cannot keep up with the constantly changing software engineering workplace. Designing courses takes lots of time and effort. Changing courses to meet the newer and more volatile industry standards could potentially harm existing education by causing a decrease in the quality of more foundation skills. For example, a more foundational skill like good testing practices could become muddled in different languages or frameworks due to a newer language potentially not being fully understood or by the intricacies of the language. This study aims to identify the current gaps that exist between software engineering education and industry. In order to address these gaps this study proposes a platform to provide students with resources related to identified gaps. Additionally, the platform will show the students the identified gaps to see if students are interested in exploring skills related to the identified gaps. The identified gaps are derived from a survey of professional software engineers and subsequent interviews. The results of the study show that students are not only interested in learning how people in industry rank their skills, but that students are overall interested in exploring more resources whether they are directly correlated with a gap or not.	en
dc.description.degree	Master of Science	en
dc.format.medium	ETD	en
dc.identifier.other	vt_gsexam:37655	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10919/115716	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Virginia Tech	en
dc.rights	In Copyright	en
dc.rights.uri	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/	en
dc.subject	Software Engineering	en
dc.subject	Education	en
dc.subject	Gaps in Software Engineering Curriculum	en
dc.subject	Industry	en
dc.subject	Skills	en
dc.title	Gaps in Software Engineering Education	en
dc.type	Thesis	en
thesis.degree.discipline	Computer Science and Applications	en
thesis.degree.grantor	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	en
thesis.degree.level	masters	en
thesis.degree.name	Master of Science	en