Development of a Web-based Intelligent Career Guidance System for Pre-Tertiary Science Students in Nigeria

Abstract

The traditional approach to career guidance is a manual method that is ineffective and inefficient. The electronic approach provides an effective and efficient career guidance. This research therefore developed a web-based intelligent career guidance system that assists pre-tertiary science students in Nigeria to independently choose a career path at anytime and anywhere with the use of computer system or mobile/smart phones as applicants seek admission into various fields of study in Nigerian Higher Institutions (Universities or Polytechnics). The intelligent system uses student-driven parameters such as favourite science subjects combination, career interest inventory analysis result, and intelligent quotient test result for career recommendation. The web-based intelligent system was designed and implemented with principle of a rule-based expert system using forward chaining algorithm, the client-side/interface pages (front-end) were designed using “Bootstrap 3” front-end framework that contains HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript. For the back-end, XAMPP was used. The system was implemented and evaluated using 200 pre-tertiary science students; they took the career choice tests and provided their feedback for the evaluation of the system performance. The feedback shows that the recommended career by the system is 95% accurate and relevant, 70% satisfactory, and 80% adequacy of information on career guidance by the system.