Developing Software Engineers
Rick Parker · 2018
My research investigates the role of practical experience on professionalization and confidence in students of software engineering during their university-to-work transition. Practical experience comes in many forms, including internships, capstone projects, and "year-in-industry" experiences. These hands-on opportunities place the learner into an authentic role using professional methods and tools to accomplish legitimate work. Improved understanding of the positive and negative influences of practical experience during the university-to-work transition may support ongoing discussions of the potential for integrating such experiences earlier in the learning pipeline. I apply a mixed-methods approach to studying the implementation of a computer science software engineering capstone course at an R1 research institution. My work integrates a case study of the artifacts produced during the capstone, qualitative interviews of student reflections about their experiences in the capstone, and a pilot run of a quantitative survey on professional identity and behaviors. Taken together, the three methods shed light on different roles that professional experience plays during the university-to-work transition.