Using professionalism to improve student outcomes in a computer science senior capstone course
Alice J. Armstrong, Carol A. Wellington · Journal of computing sciences in colleges · 2012
Starting in AY 2010, the faculty in Shippensburg University's computer science department changed the way it evaluated students' performance in the senior capstone course. We had long included a professionalism grade as part of the final grade, but we continued to see some students exhibit unprofessional behavior. We also noticed that those students who behaved unprofessionally were not able to complete this yearlong project. In AY 2010, the final grade was defined as the product of the quality of a student's deliverables and a student's professionalism. The quality grade started at 0% and increased over the semester as students submitted deliverables. The professionalism grade started at 100% and could only decrease over the semester. We designed this new grade calculation to model a professional reputation and to encourage students to stay focused on their projects and pursue them with a consistent effort. Indications from AY 2010 and AY 2011 are that this change to the syllabus has a very positive impact on student outcomes, including a drop in the number of students failing to complete the course and strong approval from our Industrial Advisory Council.