PPIG 2021 - 32nd Annual Workshop
Industry partners’ reflections on undergraduate software engineering students: An exploratory pilot qualitative study
Bhuvana Gopal, Stephen Cooper, Ryan Bockmon
Abstract: We conducted an exploratory pilot qualitative study of software engineering industry professionals who worked closely with sophomore software engineering students in the students’ semester-long software engineering course project. We traced these industry partners’ reflections, suggestions and advice for students based on their close observations and individual interactions with the students during the course project. We used semi-structured interviews, and combined them with researcher memos and reflective researcher journals. We identify, investigate and discuss these observations in detail, and bring the industry perspective to illuminate the strategies and factors that could help students succeed in the software industry. We also discuss the potential implications of our findings in the context of undergraduate software engineering courses.