The doctoral dissertations of the former Helsinki University of Technology (TKK) and Aalto University Schools of Technology (CHEM, ELEC, ENG, SCI) published in electronic format are available in the electronic publications archive of Aalto University - Aaltodoc.
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Needs Assessment of Software Systems Graduates
Sami Surakka
Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering for public examination and debate in Auditorium T1 at Helsinki University of Technology (Espoo, Finland) on the 9th of December, 2005, at 12 noon.
Dissertation in PDF format (ISBN 951-22-7951-7) [8460 KB]
Dissertation is also available in print (ISBN 951-22-7950-9)
Abstract
The research problem of the present thesis was: What technical skills do graduates from specialization in Software Systems need? Triangulation; that is, several research methods and data sources were used to solve this problem. The largest part of the thesis consisted of three questionnaires where Finnish software developers (N = 11), professors and lecturers (N = 19), and Master's students (N = 24) evaluated the importance of 42 subjects and skills such as discrete mathematics and object-oriented programming.
The second largest part of the thesis comprised two content analyses of job advertisements targeted at software developers. A trend analysis for the years 1990-2004 and a cross-sectional analysis of the year 2004 were conducted. In both analyses, the purpose was to find the most common technical skills sought in American job advertisements.
In addition, four smaller content analyses were conducted. Documents for these content analyses were the degree requirements of 31 top-level American research universities, and the internship reports, course catalog, and Master's theses of the Helsinki University of Technology. A concept analysis of the concept "software systems" was also carried out.
The main contributions of the present thesis are as follows:
- The thesis is so far the most versatile triangulation in the area in question. In particular, the content analysis of American degree requirements and the concept analysis of "software systems" were novel approaches.
- The thesis provided findings that the requirements for software developers have required greater versatility during the past 15 years. Todd, McKeen, and Gallupe reported similar change in 1995 for the 1970-1990 period. However, it was interesting to know if this trend had continued after 1990.
- According to the summarized results, the following technical subjects or skills were evaluated as being important: compilers, concurrent programming, data structures and algorithms, database management systems, distributed systems, object-oriented programming, operating systems, procedural programming, and software architectures. Most of these subjects or skills had already been reported as being important for software developers, for example, in the survey conducted by Lethbridge in 1998.
- The importance of physics and continuous mathematics was evaluated as being low. Previously, Lethbridge reported similar findings.
- In the job advertisement analyses of the present thesis, technical skills were analyzed in a more detailed manner than in the previous analyses on average. In particular, some results concerning distributed technology skills were new and more detailed than previously published.
Keywords: needs assessment, software developer, specialization in Software Systems, technical skills
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© 2005 Helsinki University of Technology
Last update 2011-05-26