DEVELOPMENT SKILLS IN SOFTWARE CODING AND TESTING NEEDED FOR RE-TRAINING OF COMPUTER EDUCATION GRADUATES IN SOUTH-SOUTH, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study sought to determine quality software development skills in Coding and Testing needed for re-training of computer education graduates in South-South, Nigeria. Two specific objectives and two research questions were postulated to guide the study and two research hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted descriptive survey research, the area of the study was Federal Universities in the South-South, Nigeria. The population of this study consisted of 692 final year Computer Education students and experts in five federal universities in South-South, Nigeria. The sample for the study consist of 253 respondents comprising 182 final year Computer Education students and 71 experts drawn from the total population of 692 students and experts in five Federal Universities offering Computer Education in South-South, Nigeria. Taro Yamane formula was employed to obtain the sample for the study. The researcher developed instrument titled “Quality Software Development Skills Need” (QSDSN). Questionnaire was used in collecting data both from Computer Education students and the software experts (the Computer Education lecturers). The instrument was face validated by three experts: one from the Department of Educational Foundations, Measurement and Evaluation, one from Computer Science Department and one from Industrial Technology Education. The corrections, suggestions and recommendations of these validates were incorporated into the final copy of the instrument. The instrument was subjected to Cronbach Alpha Reliability Test to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and reliability coefficient of .92 was achieved. The data collected were analysed using mean ( ) and Improvement Need Index (INI) to answer the research questions while independent t-test was used to test all the research hypotheses at .05 level of significance. The findings revealed that computer education graduates need re-training in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of software coding and testing. It was recommended that the Federal Government of Nigeria should as a matter of urgency ensure training facilities and infrastructures are provided in the computer education units/Departments and lecturers should intensify effort to guide the computer education students to improve their skills in software coding and testing.