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Employers' perspectives on it learning outcomes

Published: 16 October 2008 Publication History

Abstract

As part of the assessment process of our BS in Information Technology (IT), we sought the perspective of IT employers on needed skills and knowledge for a career in IT. To this end, we conducted structured interviews with 10 IT employers in the Chicago area. Starting with an open-ended query, we asked for knowledge, skills or competencies that they particularly value when hiring IT graduates. We then asked for feedback on four preselected competencies. All four competencies were framed in technology-independent terms and are consistent with the ACM 2005 IT curricula guidelines. Two of the competencies addressed abstraction and modeling, which directly correspond to learning outcomes in the core IT Fundamentals in the ACM guidelines. A third competency addressed object-based user interface development. A final competency focused on the distinction between interface and implementation. For each competency, we asked about their value with respect to their IT positions and how they assess the competency in a job candidate.
One major finding from the interviews is that knowledge specific to a particular language or platform was rarely cited as relevant and often explicitly noted as irrelevant. The competency on abstraction was uniformly rated as needed, often receiving critical ratings. Modeling and ability to distinguish between interface and implementation were also indicated as needed by nearly every interviewee. Object-based user interface development was considered useful knowledge but only needed for specific types of positions. For assessing competencies, a common approach involved asking prospective recruits to present an experience where they applied principles associated with a particular competency. Several interviewees also assess level of understanding by presenting candidates with hypothetical scenarios and observing their problem-solving process. To complement the detailed commentary provided by our interviews, we plan a survey with a large number of respondents for more reliable estimates of how employers value and assess IT competencies.

References

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Ekstrom, J. J. and Lunt, B. 2003. Education at the seams: preparing students to stitch systems together; curriculum and issues for 4-year IT programs. In Proceedings of the 4th Conference on information Technology Curriculum (Lafayette, Indiana, USA, October 16 - 18, 2003). CITC4 '03. ACM, New York, NY, 196--200. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/947121.947165
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    SIGITE '08: Proceedings of the 9th ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education
    October 2008
    280 pages
    ISBN:9781605583297
    DOI:10.1145/1414558
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 16 October 2008

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    Author Tags

    1. assessment
    2. information technology
    3. it employment
    4. learning outcomes
    5. qualitative interviews

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    • (2024)Analyzing Software Industry Trends to Improve CurriculumIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.336224412(22510-22523)Online publication date: 2024
    • (2023)Industry perceptions of the competencies needed by novice software testerEducation and Information Technologies10.1007/s10639-023-12055-229:5(6107-6138)Online publication date: 29-Jul-2023
    • (2021)Assessing Obsolescence of Software EngineersProceedings of the XXXV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering10.1145/3474624.3477059(398-403)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2021
    • (2019)Perspectives on the Gap Between the Software Industry and the Software Engineering EducationIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2019.29366607(117527-117543)Online publication date: 2019
    • (2017)Enhancing Human-Computer Interaction and User Experience Education through a Hybrid Approach to Experiential LearningProceedings of the 18th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education10.1145/3125659.3125685(83-88)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2017
    • (2017)Employers’ perspectives on new information technology technicians’ employability in North FloridaEducation + Training10.1108/ET-02-2017-001959:9(929-945)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2017
    • (2016)Employable Skills of Information Technology Graduates in the PhilippinesProceedings of the 21st Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/2910925.2910928(1-6)Online publication date: 6-May-2016
    • (2015)What makes a great software engineer?Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering - Volume 110.5555/2818754.2818839(700-710)Online publication date: 16-May-2015
    • (2015)What Makes a Great Software Engineer?2015 IEEE/ACM 37th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering10.1109/ICSE.2015.335(700-710)Online publication date: May-2015
    • (2014)Investigating the skill gap between graduating students and industry expectationsCompanion Proceedings of the 36th International Conference on Software Engineering10.1145/2591062.2591159(291-300)Online publication date: 31-May-2014
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