Developing Competency in Programming among Future Software Engineers

Abstract

Introduction. Due to the intensive development of the software industry, there is a constant update of technologies and languages used in professional programming. These processes bring up to date the tasks of improving the quality of education and ensuring the development of competency in programming among students in specializations where they are trained for the information technology industry. The purpose of the article is to highlight the results of scientific research aimed at developing and implementation at higher education institutions a system of future software engineers tr aining in professional activities. Materials and Methods. The study involved 139 students from several Ukrainian universities. We studied the influence of the proposed forms, methods and training tools on the success of the formation of future software engineers’ programming competence. The study was organized using the parallel experiment method (data collection was carried out in the control and experimental groups). To collect data on the level of students’ competence in programming, their learning outcomes in a number of professionallyoriented disciplines were analysed. To analyse the data, methods of grouping, construction of pivot tables, and graphical presentation of data were used. The reliability of the data was verified using Fisher’s test and Pearson’s chi-square test. Results. The authors were first who developed a system of training o future software engineers in professional activities and experimentally tested the effectiveness of students’ programming competence moulding in the framework of this system. Here, presented are results of the study of formation of future software engineers’ professional competency, in particular competency in the field of programming, during their college education. A brief description of the professional competence structure and the system of future software engineers training for professional activities is given. Description of the pedagogical experiment stages and its contents is given, along with quantitative data in the form of tables and bar charts and its analysis. At the decisive stage of the experiment, more than a third of the students had low levels of competence under consideration, which indicated the inadequate level of professional training. According to the results of the control stage, it was established that in the experimental group, the level of competence in programming increased significantly. Discussion and Conclusion. The study results are of practical value for the scientific and pedagogical staff of universities for the development of educational programs for professional training of future software engineers, in particular, in the field of programming.