Critical reflection of an integrated ICT curriculum

Critical reflection of an integrated ICT

curriculum designed to increase the quantity

of professionally competent graduates

By

Nicole Herbert BSc (Hons)

Discipline of Information and Communication Technology

School of Technology, Environments and Design

College of Sciences and Engineering

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

University of Tasmania December, 2019

ii

DECLARATION

This thesis is submitted to the University of Tasmania in fulfilment of the requirements

for the Doctor of Philosophy. I was primarily responsible for the design, execution,

analysis and reporting of the research although it was necessarily undertaken with the

assistance of others, who are duly acknowledged in the thesis.

This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the

University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly

acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material

previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement

is made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes

copyright.

Nicole Herbert

iii

AUTHORITY OF ACCESS

The publishers of the papers in Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 6 hold the copyright for that

content and access to the material should be sought from the respective publishers. The

remaining non-published content of the thesis may be made available for loan and

limited copying and communication in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The curriculum work behind this thesis has taken a lifetime to complete and I need to

thank some amazing people.

This thesis would not be possible without the support of my PhD supervisors. It has

been a privilege to work with all of you. You have all provided a great deal of

encouragement, support and expertise and you have all influenced my development as a

researcher. Associate Professor Kristy de Salas, this would not have been possible

without your expert guidance and detailed critiques, you have been an inspiration to me

throughout the entire process. Associate Professor Erik Wapstra and Associate

Professor Tina Acuña, your insightful and constructive feedback from a non-ICT

perspective was invaluable.

I am extremely appreciative of my discipline colleagues, both past and present. I am

very fortunate to have worked with such a dedicated set of professionals. Thank you for

your hard work throughout the design, development and delivery of the renewed

curriculum, its success is due to your diligence and commitment. Thank you so much

for granting me the time this last year to focus on this thesis.

I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my family and friends. This would not

have been possible without your love, encouragement and wholehearted support. To my

parents, thank you for supporting me throughout my life, it was the work ethic you

instilled in me from childhood that motivated me to continue. To Dave and Sam, thank

you for giving me the space and time to complete this thesis, being there during the

difficult times and being here to celebrate at the end. It is finally finished!

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CRITICAL REFLECTION OF AN INTEGRATED ICT CURRICULUM DESIGNED TO INCREASE THE QUANTITY

OF PROFESSIONALLY COMPETENT GRADUATES .................................................................................... I

DECLARATION .............................................................................................................................................. II AUTHORITY OF ACCESS .................................................................................................................................. III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................................. IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................................... V ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................. VII LIST OF RELATED PUBLICATIONS TO THIS RESEARCH .............................................................................................. X LIST OF LEARNING AND TEACHING AWARDS RELATED TO THIS RESEARCH ................................................................ XIV PUBLICATION STATEMENTS ........................................................................................................................... XV

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 2 1.2 CHALLENGES FOR ICT HIGHER EDUCATION ........................................................................................... 2 1.3 PURPOSE OF THE THESIS ................................................................................................................ 10 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR THIS THESIS ............................................................................................. 14 1.5 SYNOPSIS AND STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS .......................................................................................... 16 1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS THESIS .......................................................................................................... 18

CHAPTER 2 DESIGN OF AN ICT CURRICULUM INFORMED BY INTENDED GRADUATE CAREER OUTCOMES

AND THE REQUIRED SKILL SETS TO ENHANCE THE EMPLOYABILITY OF GRADUATES ........................... 20

2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 21 2.2 A PROCESS TO GUIDE ICT CURRICULUM DESIGN .................................................................................. 22 2.3 PAPER 1: IDENTIFYING CAREER OUTCOMES AS THE FIRST STEP IN ICT CURRICULA DEVELOPMENT .................. 24 2.4 PAPER 2: STAKEHOLDER-LED CURRICULUM REDESIGN .......................................................................... 35 2.5 PAPER 3: CAREER OUTCOMES AND SFIA AS TOOLS TO DESIGN ICT CURRICULUM ...................................... 44 2.6 PAPER 4: ICT CURRICULUM AND COURSE STRUCTURE: THE GREAT BALANCING ACT .................................... 55

CHAPTER 3 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN ICT CURRICULUM WITH INTEGRATED PROFESSIONAL

SKILL DEVELOPMENT TO ENHANCE THE EMPLOYABILITY OF GRADUATES .......................................... 66

3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 67 3.2 UNDERSTANDING COMPETENCY AND PROFESSIONALLY COMPETENT ........................................................ 68 3.3 UNDERSTANDING THE EMPLOYABILITY SKILL SET .................................................................................. 70 3.4 UNDERSTANDING THE INTEGRATED APPROACH ................................................................................... 73 3.5 UNDERSTANDING THE CASE STUDY COURSE STRUCTURE ........................................................................ 73

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3.6 PAPER 5: A METHODOLOGY TO INTEGRATE PROFESSIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT AN ICT

CURRICULUM ............................................................................................................................................. 77 3.7 PAPER 6: INTEGRATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL SKILLS THROUGHOUT A CURRICULUM IMPROVES A

GRADUATE'S COMPETENCY ........................................................................................................................... 85 3.8 PAPER 7: AN ASSESSMENT SCHEME FOR SHORT-TERM PLACEMENTS ....................................................... 93 3.9 PAPER 8: REFLECTIONS ON 17 YEARS OF ICT CAPSTONE PROJECT COORDINATION: EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR

MANAGING CLIENTS, TEAMS AND ASSESSMENT .............................................................................................. 100

CHAPTER 4 EVALUATION OF STRATEGIES TO INCREASE ICT COURSE COMMENCEMENTS AND REDUCE

ICT COURSE ATTRITION TO IMPACT ON THE QUANTITY OF GRADUATES .......................................... 107

4.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 108 4.2 PAPER 9: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES EMPLOYED WITHIN AN ICT CURRICULUM TO INCREASE THE

QUANTITY OF GRADUATES ......................................................................................................................... 110 4.3 PAPER 10: IMPACT OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT ON FIRST YEAR ICT PERFORMANCE ................................. 118 4.4 PAPER 11: IS THE ATAR A USEFUL PREDICTOR OF SUCCESS IN ICT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ......................... 125 4.5 PAPER 12: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF FACTORS AFFECTING ATTRITION WITHIN AN ICT DEGREE ............... 136

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION INCLUDING FINDINGS, IMPLICATIONS AND FUTURE WORK ...................... 147

5.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 148 5.2 SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS ............................................................................................................... 154 5.3 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................ 164

CHAPTER 6 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................... 165

6.1 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................. 166 6.2 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................. 187

CHAPTER 7 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................... 228

7.1 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 229

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ABSTRACT

Rapidly evolving technology has resulted in a continuous demand for professionally

competent information and communication technology (ICT) graduates, both nationally

and internationally. In 2019, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) released figures

forecasting that Australia will require an additional 100,000 ICT specialist workers by

2024. A potential source of these specialist workers is tertiary ICT graduates. While the

ACS reported that ICT domestic undergraduate enrolments rose from a low of around

19,000 in 2010 to 30,000 in 2017, this growth is not large enough to meet the forecasted

demand. High attrition rates in ICT courses – caused by several factors relating to a lack

of student engagement, motivation, and academic success – also impact the number of

graduates. Despite the fact that the ACS reported there has been steady growth in

graduate completions since 2012, there were only 4400 domestic ICT graduates in

2017. This low number of ICT graduates is impacting the national economy by limiting

the growth and advancement of many industry sectors and constraining the nation’s

ability to compete in the global digital economy.

Previous research indicates that ICT graduates lack competence with some generic

employability skills that preclude them from functioning productively in the workplace.

Students graduating from ICT courses are generally strong in their technical ability but

weaker in their professional skills, in particular their ability to communicate and

collaborate effectively in the workplace. ICT graduates lack professional competence

with the employability skill set – the ability to combine technical and professional

knowledge, skills and attitudes to effectively perform professional tasks to industry

standards. The poor quality of ICT graduates has serious implications for the ICT higher

education sector as ICT industry employers were reportedly bypassing ICT graduates by

employing high-performing students from non-ICT courses and subsequently training

them in the required ICT technical skills. The growing demand for professionally

competent ICT graduates warrants the need for more effective ICT curriculum design.

The objective of this thesis is to address the core challenge for ICT higher education:

how to design ICT curriculum to increase the quantity of graduates professionally

competent with the employability skill set. This thesis provides a critical reflection and

viii

comprehensive evidence-based evaluation of an entire ICT curriculum. This case study

ICT curriculum incorporates the core knowledge and skills from the discipline fields of

computer science, information technology and information systems and the findings in

this thesis are relevant to all of those ICT disciplines.

The findings of this body of work will be of benefit to both ICT industry and ICT

higher education at a national and international level. There are three significant

findings:

1. An ICT curriculum that is aligned with the intended graduate career outcomes

and related skill sets can increase course commencements and enhance the

employability of graduates;

2. Professional skill development can be integrated within an ICT curriculum

without degrading technical skill development to result in professionally

competent graduates; and

3. Ensuring that students are engaged with academic learning activities and

motivated to complete the course by the career opportunities can reduce ICT

course attrition.

This thesis has made a substantive contribution to the body of knowledge and practice

in ICT curriculum design by identifying:

• A process to classify potential ICT career outcomes and the required skill sets

for ICT graduates for the purpose of designing a curriculum;

• A methodology to effectively include professional skill development throughout

an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates; and

• Effective strategies with implementation techniques to increase ICT course

commencements and reduce ICT course attrition to increase the quantity of

graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set.

This opportunity to evaluate an entire ICT curriculum has identified several key

implications for ICT higher education:

• Using a skills reference model in the curriculum design process, such as that

provided by the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), enables

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curriculum designers and industry representatives to ensure that an ICT

curriculum equips graduates with the required skill sets for the ICT industry;

• Integrating professional skill development within an ICT curriculum can result

in graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set; and

• Greater support mechanisms intentionally provided to sectors of the student

population that commence an ICT course could improve academic success and

reduce course attrition.

This thesis is presented as a series of academically peer-reviewed papers that reflect on

the design, implementation and empirical evaluation of an ICT curriculum designed to

increase the quantity of professionally competent graduates.

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LIST OF RELATED PUBLICATIONS TO THIS RESEARCH

Papers included in this thesis

These papers were first-authored by this thesis author and are grouped into chapters

throughout the thesis to present a coherent reflection of the research undertaken. The

Publication Statements can be found in the preface section of this thesis.

Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Michael Cameron-Jones, Winyu

Chinthammit, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis, and Matthew Springer. 2013. Identifying

Career Outcomes as the First Step in ICT Curricula Development. Proceedings of the

Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2013), 29 January - 1

February 2013, Adelaide, Australia, pp. 31-40. ISBN 978-1-921770-21-0 (2013)

Nicole Herbert, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis, Michael Cameron-Jones, Winyu

Chinthammit, Ian Lewis, Kristy de Salas, and Matthew Springer. 2013. Stakeholder-

Led Curriculum Redesign. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Australasian Computing

Education Conference (ACE 2013), 29 January - 1 February 2013, Adelaide, Australia,

pp. 51-58. ISBN 978-1-921770-21-0 (2013)

Nicole Herbert, Ian Lewis and Kristy de Salas. 2013. Career outcomes and SFIA as

Tools to Design ICT Curriculum. Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on

Information Systems, 4-6 December 2013, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 1-10. (2013)

Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Julian Dermoudy, and Leonie Ellis. 2014.

ICT Curriculum and Course Structure: the Great Balancing Act. Proceedings of the

Sixteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2014), 20-23 January

2014, Auckland, New Zealand, pp. 21-30. ISBN 978-1-921770-31-9 (2014)

Nicole Herbert. 2017. Impact of Student Engagement on First Year ICT Performance.

In 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational

Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2017 pp. 1085-1090.

Nicole Herbert. 2017. An Assessment Scheme for Short-Term Placements. 2017. In

International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence

(CSCI), Las Vegas, NV, 2017, pp. 1067-1072.

xi

Nicole Herbert. 2018. Reflections on 17 years of ICT Capstone Project Coordination:

Effective Strategies for Managing Clients, Teams and Assessment, Proceedings of the

49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, February 21-24,

2018, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Nicole Herbert and David Herbert. 2018. Is the ATAR a Useful Predictor of Success in

ICT?: An Empirical Study. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Computing

Education Conference (ACE '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 35-44.

Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuña. 2020. An

Exploratory Study of Factors Affecting Attrition within an ICT Degree. Accepted at

22nd Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE '20). ACM, New York, NY,

USA.

Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuña, Erik Wapstra. 2020. A Methodology to

Integrate Professional Skill Development throughout an ICT Curriculum. 25th Annual

ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

Conference (ITiCSE '20). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuña. 2020.

Integrating the Development of Professional Skills throughout an ICT Curriculum

Improves a Graduate’s Competency, 2020 International Conference on Computational

Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2020.

Nicole Herbert, Erik Wapstra, David Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuña. 2020.

Empirical Analysis of Strategies Employed within an ICT Curriculum to Increase the

Quantity of Graduates, 2020 International Conference on Computational Science and

Computational Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV, USA, 2020.

Papers related to the content of this thesis

These papers were not first-authored by this thesis author and were written to present

the research related to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) in Chapter

2 of this thesis to an international audience using a different perspective. These papers

are included in Appendix A.

xii

Ian Lewis, Kristy de Salas, Nicole Herbert, Winyu Chinthammit, Julian Dermoudy,

Leonie Ellis, and Matthew Springer. 2013. Development of ICT curricula through

graduate career outcomes and required skills. Proceedings of the 2013 International

Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering,

22-25 July 2013, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 1-7. ISBN 1-60132-235-6 (2013)

Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Julian Dermoudy, Nicole Herbert, Leonie Ellis, Matthew

Springer and Winyu Chinthammit. 2013. Designing the modern ICT curriculum:

Opportunities and challenges. Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on

Information Systems (ICIS 2013), 15-18 December 2013, Milan, Italy, pp. 1- 12. (2013)

Papers indirectly related to this thesis

These papers were first authored by the thesis author before this doctoral study

commenced, and provide details of some of the initial research in collaborative capstone

project experiences that form the basis for creating engaging and motivating learning

experiences and incorporating professional skill development within an ICT curriculum.

These papers are included in Appendix B.

Nicole Herbert. 2007. Quantitative Peer Assessment: Can students be objective.

Proceedings of the Ninth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2007),

30 Jan - 2 Feb 2007, Ballarat, Victoria, pp. 63-71. ISBN 1-920-68247-3 (2007)

Nicole Clark.1 2005. Evaluating student teams developing unique industry projects.

Proceedings of the Seventh Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2005),

January 2005, Newcastle, Australia, pp. 21-29. ISBN 1-920682-24-4 (2005)

Nicole Clark, Pamela Davies, and Rebecca Skeers. 2005. Self and Peer Assessment in

Software Engineering Projects. Proceedings of the Seventh Australasian Computing

1 Clark was Nicole Herbert’s maiden name

xiii

Education Conference (ACE2005), January 2005, Newcastle, Australia, pp. 91-100.

ISBN 1-920682-24-4 (2005)

Nicole Clark. 2004. Peer Testing in Software Engineering Projects. Computing

Education 2004 Sixth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2004)

Australian Computer Science Communications, January 2004, Dunedin, New Zealand,

pp. 41-48. ISBN 1-920682-12-0 (2004)

xiv

LIST OF LEARNING AND TEACHING AWARDS RELATED TO THIS

RESEARCH

2017 Australian Awards for University Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning

Australian Government Award for leading the design, development and delivery of an

industry-engaged curriculum that integrates professionalism with technical skills to

enhance the employability of ICT graduates.

2016 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, University of Tasmania

For outstanding contributions to learning and teaching in the ICT discipline over a

sustained period of time.

2014 Vice Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, University of Tasmania

For outstanding contributions to student learning for sustained commitment to ICT

curriculum development that enhances student learning and work readiness by

incorporating in-demand industry skills.

2014 iAwards Tasmanian ICT Educator of the Year, Australian Information Industry Association

Awarded by ICT industry for the work on the ICT curriculum development and the

delivery of the capstone projects

Teaching Merit Certificates, University of Tasmania

• 2014 for approaches to ICT curriculum development

• 2013 for approaches to assessment in the capstone ICT project units

• 2011 for approaches to student learning in the capstone ICT project units

xv

PUBLICATION STATEMENTS

Publication Statement for Paper 1: Identifying Career Outcomes as the First Step in ICT Curricula Development

Statement from co-authors confirming the authorship contribution of the PhD candidate.

Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Michael Cameron-Jones, Winyu Chinthammit, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis, Matthew Springer. 2013. Identifying Career Outcomes as the First Step in ICT Curricula dDevelopment. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2013), 29 January - 1 February 2013, Adelaide, Australia, pp. 31-40.

As co-authors of the paper “Identifying Career Outcomes as the First Step in ICT

Curricula Development” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is

consistent with her being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution

to the following items should be noted:

• Definition of the process and constraints• Conducting the sessions with the industry members to identify roles• Analysis and interpretation of the role data• Collating the SFIA skills and review• Identifying the levels of responsibility• Writing of the first draft of paper and significant contribution to other drafts• Critical appraisal of its content after contributions from colleagues

Signature Date

Nicole Herbert 19/11/2019

Kristy de Salas 11/11/2019

Ian Lewis 11/11/2019

Julian Dermoudy 1/12/2019

Leonie Ellis 19/11/2019

Matthew Springer 19/11/2019

Winyu Chinthammit 19/11/2019

Mike Cameron-Jones 19/11/2019

xvi

Publication Statement for Paper 2: Stakeholder-Led Curriculum Redesign


Nicole Herbert, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis, Michael Cameron-Jones, Winyu Chinthammit, Ian Lewis, Kristy de Salas, and Matthew Springer. Stakeholder-Led Curriculum Redesign. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2013), 29 January - 1 February 2013, Adelaide, Australia, pp. 51-58.

As co-authors of the paper “Stakeholder-Led Curriculum Redesign” we confirm that

Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is consistent with her being named first

author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution to the following items should be

noted:

• Organising the forums and interviews• Leading the meetings to identify the questions• Conducting the forums along with other working party members• Collating the interview data• Leading the meetings to analyse the data• Incorporating the outcomes into the first draft of the curriculum• First draft of the paper and significant contribution to other drafts• Critical appraisal of its final content after significant contributions from

colleaguesSignature Date






Matthew Springer 19/11/2019

Winyu Chinthammit 19/11/2019

Mike Cameron-Jones 19/11/2019

xvii

Publication Statement for Paper 3: Career Outcomes and SFIA as Tools to Design ICT Curriculum


Nicole Herbert, Ian Lewis, Kristy de Salas. 2013. Career Outcomes and SFIA as Tools to Design ICT Curriculum. Proceedings of the 24th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 4-6 December 2013, Melbourne, Australia, pp. 1-10. (2013)

As co-authors of the paper “Career outcomes and SFIA as Tools to Design ICT

Curriculum” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is consistent

with her being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution to the

following items should be noted:

• Analysis and interpretation of the career outcomes data

• Identifying the SFIA skills and levels of responsibility

• Incorporating the skills into the first draft of the curriculum

• Mapping the skills and career outcomes across the final curriculum

• Writing of the first draft of paper and significant contribution to other drafts

• Critical appraisal of its content after contributions from colleagues

Signature Date




xviii

Publication Statement for Paper 4: ICT Curriculum and Course Structure: the Great Balancing Act


Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis. 2014. ICT Curriculum and Course Structure: the Great Balancing Act. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2014), 20-23 January 2014, Auckland, New Zealand, pp. 21-30. ISBN 978-1-921770-31-9 (2014)

As co-authors of the paper “ICT Curriculum and Course Structure: the Great Balancing

Act” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is consistent with her

being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution to the following

items should be noted:

• Analysis and interpretation of the career outcomes data

• Identifying the SFIA skills and levels of responsibility

• Mapping the skills and career outcomes across the final curriculum

• Leading the review of ACM curricula and national and international providers

• Developing the first draft of the curriculum

• Mapping the new curriculum to UTAS course structure

• Writing of the first draft of paper and significant contribution to other drafts


Signature Date






xix

Publication Statement for Paper 5: A Methodology to Integrate Professional Skill Development throughout an ICT Curriculum


Nicole Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna, Erik Wapstra. 2020. A Methodology to Integrate Professional Skill Development throughout an ICT Curriculum. 25th Annual ACM Conference on InnovaFon and Technology in Computer Science EducaFon Conference (ITiCSE '20). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

As co-authors of the paper “A Methodology to Integrate Professional Skill Development

throughout an ICT Curriculum” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the

paper is consistent with her being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s

contribution to the following items should be noted:

• Leading the review of literature on curriculum design and incorporating

professional skill development

• Leading the design, development and delivery of the curriculum

• Developing the methodology for integrating professional skills

• Collation of previous and new course data

• Analysis and interpretation of the data

• Writing of the first draft of paper and significant contribution to all other drafts


Signature Date



Erik Wapstra 30/11/2019

Tina Acuna 9/12/2019

xx

Publication Statement for Paper 6: Integra\ng the Development of Professional Skills throughout an ICT Curriculum improves a Graduate’s Competency


Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna. 2020. Integracng the Development of Professional Skills throughout an ICT Curriculum improves a Graduate’s Competency. Submieed to the 25th Annual ACM Conference on InnovaFon and Technology in Computer Science EducaFon Conference (ITiCSE '20). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

As co-authors of the paper “Integrating the Development of Professional Skills

throughout an ICT Curriculum improves a Graduate’s Competency” we confirm that

Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is consistent with her being named first

author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution to the following items should be

noted:

• Leading the review of literature on curriculum design and incorporating

professional skill development


• Developing the methodology for integrating professional skills





Signature Date





David Herbert 20/11/2019

xxi

Publication Statement for Paper 9: Empirical Analysis of Strategies Employed within an ICT Curriculum to Increase the Quantity of Graduates


Nicole Herbert, Erik Wapstra, David Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna. 2020. Empirical Analysis of Strategies Employed within an ICT Curriculum to Increase the Quantity of Graduates. Submitted to the 25th Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Conference (ITiCSE '20). ACM, New York, NY, USA.

As co-authors of the paper “Empirical Analysis of Strategies Employed within an ICT

Curriculum to Increase the Quantity of Graduates” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s

contribution to the paper is consistent with her being named first author. In particular,

the candidate’s contribution to the following items should be noted:

• Leading the design of the curriculum based on career outcomes

• Leading the review of literature to increase quantity of graduates






Signature Date



Erik Wapstra 30/112019



xxii

Publication Statement for Paper 11: Is the ATAR a Useful Predictor of Success in ICT?: An Empirical Study


Nicole Herbert and David Herbert. 2018. Is the ATAR a Useful Predictor of Success in ICT?: An Empirical Study. In Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE '18). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 35-44.

As co-authors of the paper “Is the ATAR a Useful Predictor of Success in ICT?: An

Empirical Study” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is

consistent with her being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution

to the following items should be noted:

• Collation of ATAR related data



• Critical appraisal of its content after contributions from colleague

Signature Date



xxiii

Publication Statement for Paper 12: An Exploratory Study of Factors Affecting Attrition within an ICT Degree


Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna. 2020. An Exploratory Study of Factors Affecting Attrition within an ICT Degree. 22nd Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE '20). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 35-44.

As co-authors of the paper “An Exploratory Study of Factors Affecting Attrition within

an ICT Degree” we confirm that Nicole Herbert’s contribution to the paper is consistent

with her being named first author. In particular, the candidate’s contribution to the

following items should be noted:


• Collation of course data




Signature Date






1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

2

1.1 INTRODUCTION

This thesis is presented as a series of peer-reviewed papers, grouped into related topics

that reflect on the design, implementation, and evaluation of an information and

communication technology (ICT2) curriculum designed to increase the quantity of

graduates professionally competent3 with the employability skill set4.

In late 2011 the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of

Tasmania in Australia was externally reviewed and it was a recommendation of the

review panel that the existing two undergraduate courses5 (degrees) be discontinued,

and a single undergraduate course be created in their place. This presented an

opportunity to conduct a thorough ICT curriculum renewal process and while

undertaking this process some significant challenges for ICT higher education were

identified that needed to be investigated and resolved.

1.2 CHALLENGES FOR ICT HIGHER EDUCATION

At the commencement of the curriculum renewal process in 2012, there was growing

local and national level concern within the ICT industry and within government

agencies about the quantity and quality of the ICT graduates [9, 14, 12, 77].

With regards to quantity, in 2012 the Australian Computer Society (ACS) predicted

strong growth in the demand for ICT technical and professional staff [9]; since then the

2 Within this thesis, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a discipline field that incorporates the core knowledge and skills from the fields of Computer Science, Information Technology and Information Systems [7]. 3 Professional competence is the ability to perform a task to industry standard and is indicative of a quality graduate [7]. 4 Within this thesis, the ICT employability skill set is a combination of ICT technical, non-technical (business), and professional (generic, soft, graduate) skills, suitable for a range of ICT career outcomes. 5 Within this thesis, the term course represents an entire degree and the term unit represents a subject. To graduate from a three-year course a student must pass 24 units.

3

ICT workforce has doubled from 300,000 to 792,000 [40] in 2019 and the ACS is

currently forecasting that Australia will require an additional 100,000 ICT specialist

workers by 2024 [40]. Female representation in the ICT workforce is low and this lack

of qualified females to contribute ideas and steer technology developments is a major

concern for the industry [36, 100]. Due to the high demand for qualified ICT personnel,

skilled migrants play a significant role in filling skilled ICT positions.

With regards to quality, prior to the curriculum renewal in 2012 there were reports that

potential employers considered ICT graduates to be deficient in necessary skills,

particularly professional skills such as communication and interpersonal skills [77, 3,

27, 56, 14, 61]. ICT graduates lacked professional competence in the ICT employability

skill set. In a recent study completed by Palmer et al. [92] using the 2017 Australian

national census data, they found that one third of ICT bachelor graduates do not work in

professional ICT roles, even though there is significant demand for ICT professionals.

The low quantity and poor quality of ICT graduates has serious implications for the

Australian ICT industry as it limits its ability to provide a timely response to the

growing demand for ICT-related products and services [9].

The core challenge for ICT higher education, therefore, is how to design ICT curriculum

to increase the quantity of graduates professionally competent with the employability

skill set. The first part of the core challenge relates to the quantity of students

completing ICT courses. This challenge will now be explored in detail.

1.2.1 Understanding the factors that influence the quantity of ICT graduates

Rapidly evolving technology has resulted in a continuous demand for capable ICT

graduates, both nationally and internationally [29]. The low number of ICT graduates is

impacting the national economy and the growth of many industry sectors, as the use of

ICT is fundamental to their technological modernisation [9, 114]. When the curriculum

renewal began in 2012, the ACS released figures indicating there had been a 31%

growth in ICT industry employment since 2003. While undergraduate course

commencements had slowly begun to increase from 2009 to 2013, the number of

domestic students (Australian citizens) graduating from ICT courses had halved over

the previous decade; down from 9093 in 2003 to 4547 in 2013 [9, 12]. At the time, the

4

growth in international student commencements in ICT courses had stagnated and

started to decline [11]. Increasing the domestic and international appeal of Australian

ICT courses was essential to meet the future demands of the industry. Low

commencements and high attrition in ICT courses were serious problems for higher

education as there were funding implications, which were resulting in a lack of

resources (facilities and staff) to create experiences that would attract and retain

students and to design courses that would enhance a graduate’s employability6 [30].

With regards to improving the quantity of available graduates, ICT higher education

faced two major challenges: how to increase the ICT course commencements and how

to reduce the attrition rate for ICT courses.

1.2.1.1 Understanding the factors that influence a decision to commence an ICT course

When the curriculum renewal began in 2012, ICT courses rank poorly on the list of

preferred courses for applicants for university places [11]. Potential students had poor

perceptions of the field of ICT [32] and this resulted in low commencement rates for

ICT tertiary courses in comparison to other disciplines [11]. For example, there were

increases in the number of admissions across most broad fields of education in 2011

compared with the same period in 2010, except in ICT which was down 1.3% [11] –

indicating that ICT had an image problem [32]. Enrolments in pre-tertiary ICT subjects

– at years 11 and 12 – were also low and typically did not attract high-achieving

students [12] and this was having a flow-on effect at the tertiary level. Applications to

commence study in the broad field of Information Technology were very low in

comparison to other fields of education [41]. To grow commencements in ICT courses,

it was imperative to improve the perceptions of the field of ICT and to appeal to a

diverse range of potential applicants irrespective of their prior academic history with

ICT.

6 Employability is defined as a set of achievements, which includes skills, knowledge and personal attributes that make them attractive to an employer [127].

5

Carter [32] provided significant evidence that students chose not to study ICT due to

their perceptions of the field. A career in ICT was perceived as male-dominated,

repetitive, isolated, and focused on the technical rather than the professional [32, 14].

While this perception was accurate in the past, the rapidly changing nature of the ICT

sector was driving a transformation of career outcomes and employers were demanding

a much wider range of skills beyond ICT technical skills, including communication,

collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking [96, 111, 56]. As a result, the narrow

focus of ICT careers was broadening, yet these poor perceptions remained. To improve

the perceptions of the transforming field of ICT, all stakeholders (potential applicants,

ICT teachers, ICT academics and employers) needed to be more informed of the range

of available ICT graduate careers [29] and these career opportunities needed to direct

ICT curriculum design [29, 117] to result in competent graduates for the range of ICT

career outcomes available currently and into the future [40, 14, 13].

To ensure competent graduates for the broad range of ICT career opportunities

available, ICT curriculum designers7 needed to embrace a career focus within the design

process. In doing so, the old perceptions of ICT careers could be countered and result in

attracting a larger and more diverse range of applicants. To achieve this outcome, a

relevant question for higher education ICT curriculum designers is:

• What is a process to identify a range of graduate career outcomes that can

direct the design of an ICT higher education curriculum to attract new

applicants?

This question will be explored in Chapter 2 of this thesis.

The other challenge to explore to increase the quantity of graduates to meet the growing

demand is the reasons why current students do not complete their studies.

7 Within this thesis, ICT curriculum designers should be viewed as ICT academics who are content knowledge experts working together with generic academic curriculum developers and ICT industry representatives to design and develop ICT curricula.

6

1.2.1.2 Understanding the factors that influence a decision to withdraw from an ICT course

To increase the quantity of ICT graduates it is necessary to not only increase the

commencements in ICT courses but also reduce the rate of course attrition. The term

‘attrition’ is used here to indicate the loss of students from an ICT course, either as a

result of transferring out of the course and into another course or leaving the university

altogether [100]. When the curriculum renewal began in 2012, national course attrition

across all disciplines was at 17% [11], while there was a significantly higher national

course attrition rate of 45% for ICT courses [9]. There have been several studies

exploring the contributing factors for high attrition rates in ICT courses:

• poor course choice due to student misconceptions of the ICT discipline and what

was involved in studying ICT [19, 20, 23, 32, 86];

• lack of motivation to complete [95, 106, 20, 100, 99, 101, 36];

• poor time management and study skills [19, 58, 109, 95, 106];

• lack of academic success [4, 109, 58, 93, 99, 100, 103]; and

• a multitude of factors that were all causing a lack of student engagement [31,

104, 28, 86]:

o poor quality teaching or feedback [19, 58, 126, 100, 78, 103];

o poor course and subject structure and teaching style [58, 75, 100, 99, 78,

86];

o badly designed practical work and non-alignment with professional

practice [19, 126, 75, 86, 96, 99, 100, 78]; and

o low levels of interaction with peers and staff [15, 23, 86, 95, 100, 99].

With regards to misconceptions about ICT, Beaubouef and McDowell [20] summarised

a number of misconceptions that were held about studying ICT: nature of the field –

ICT is much wider than producing reports and collating data and infiltrates a wide range

of industries; ICT is easy – ICT requires mathematics and problem-solving skills and a

disciplined approach to solve complicated problems; social issues and communication

skills – ICT careers are not solitary positions and require written and oral

communication skills to convey ideas and concepts to develop systems that meet user

7

requirements; and programming – while it is essential that all ICT graduates have some

ability to program, it is only one of the many important skills required.

With regards to motivation, Petersen et al. [95] and Shell et al. [106] found the main

difference between students who complete their course and students who withdraw from

their course is their motivation to study. Biggers et al. [23] found that, although the

primary reason students gave for withdrawing from their course was allegedly a “loss of

interest”, the underlying explanation was often related to the undesirability of a

programming career. Students, in particular female students, are motivated by prospects

of satisfying and financially rewarding careers [100, 99, 101, 36].

With regards to a lack of academic success, many studies have found that failure was a

major factor in the decision to withdraw from a course and ICT students who pass

subjects were more likely to continue [4, 109, 58, 93, 99, 100, 103]. Core introductory

programming subjects had one of the highest failure rates [18, 23, 122]. Numerous

studies had identified prior learning of ICT as having an impact on success within an

ICT course, particularly in introductory programming [15, 76, 125, 80, 72, 104, 126, 55,

83]. Sheard et al. [104] found that students with English as a second language (ESL)

were likely to achieve lower results in introductory programming. Horton and Craig

[72] found that students with ESL were more likely to fail introductory programming

and withdraw from the course. Research has shown that when both novice and

experienced programmers are enrolled in the same introductory programming subject,

the experienced programmers lack engagement due to repetition of material [31, 28],

and the novice programmers lose confidence due to their low results [90, 23, 93]. A lack

of confidence was a core factor in the decision to withdraw from a course [99, 23].

With regards to the issues of engagement, research had identified a link between student

engagement and attrition [28] and had identified that student engagement can be defined

as incorporating three different aspects: behavioural, cognitive and affective [86].

• Behavioral engagement relates to the extent to which students participate in the

learning activities (such as attendance at class, accessing material, attempting

learning/assessment tasks).

8

• Cognitive engagement refers to the intellectual effort deployed in the learning

activities, recognising that some approaches such as active learning and

reflection activities require deeper levels of cognitive effort.

• Affective engagement (or emotional engagement) relates to such things as the

level of enthusiasm displayed, interest in the material, sense of belonging, or

interaction with peers and staff.

A study by Morgan et al. [86] found students tended to perceive their level of

engagement by measuring mainly affective aspects closely followed by behavioural

aspects, while staff overwhelmingly only use behavioural aspects to measure student

engagement. This difference resulted in staff neglecting aspects of delivery that would

improve student engagement. The same study [86] also found that most academic staff

believed that students were responsible for their level of engagement, whereas students

were divided with equal numbers believing it was the responsibility of students or staff.

This resulted in staff developing learning activities without considering how they could

make them more engaging, as they believed the onus is on the student to engage.

The lack of student engagement in ICT courses was a major cause for concern as it lead

to withdrawal from a course, particularly for first-year students [31, 104, 28, 86].

Pappas et al. [93] found that the students that were more engaged in their studies had a

greater intention to continue their studies. When the curriculum renewal began, ICT

courses were still largely being delivered using traditional methods – chalk and talk –

rather than incorporating new technology and delivery styles. ICT academics were

found to be conservative about embracing new teaching practices and technology-

enhanced delivery that would allow a student-centred learning experience which has

been shown to reduce attrition [102]. A lack of collaborative active learning

opportunities and a lack of practical application to professional practice such as that

provided by work-integrated learning were affecting attrition rates [100, 15, 23, 99, 96].

To address course attrition issues for a diverse range of students, a relevant question for

higher education ICT curriculum designers is:

9

• How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed and delivered that amends

misconceptions of the field of ICT, improves engagement and motivation, and

increases academic success?

This question will be explored in detail in Chapter 4 of this thesis.

The second part of the core challenge to meeting the increasing demand for ICT

graduates relates to the quality of those students completing ICT courses, and ensuring

they are professionally competent with the employability skill set to meet the needs of

industry. This challenge will now be explored in detail.

1.2.2 Understanding the factors that influence the quality of ICT graduates

When the curriculum renewal began in 2012, even though there was significant jobs

growth in the Australian ICT industry, many ICT graduates were not being employed in

a professional position in the ICT industry [92]. Studies had found that nearly a third of

ICT bachelor graduates were not working in professional ICT roles [88, 92]. Norton and

Cakitaki [88] indicated deficient undergraduate ICT curricula was one contributor to the

poor employment outcomes for graduates and that curriculum should be better designed

such that graduates can acquire the knowledge and skills for the intended ICT career

outcomes [117]. When the curriculum renewal began in 2012, previous research had

indicated that students graduating from ICT courses were generally strong in their

technical skills but weaker in their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively in

the workplace [77, 27, 3, 5], and so were not well placed to meet the needs of their

employers. As part of a national ICT scoping study, Koppi and Naghdy [77] found ICT

employers held widespread views of deficiencies in the workplace readiness of new

graduates, particularly the essential professional skills – also known as generic, soft, or

graduate skills – such as interpersonal and professional communication, business

awareness and problem-solving abilities. Research undertaken for the Council for

Industry and Higher Education [5] highlighted that graduates lacked generic

employability skills – teamwork, communication, problem solving and self-

management – that were crucial to enable graduates to function effectively in the

workplace [73]. Research by Hamilton et al. [56] exploring the views of ICT employers

about graduate employability skills found that employers were more concerned about

10

the professional skills than the technical skills, which they believed were vital for

sustained, successful careers in the ICT industry.

As a consequence of ICT industry employers identifying deficiencies in the

employability of ICT graduates [96, 77, 27, 3, 5, 73, 56], there were serious

repercussions for the ICT higher education sector as the industry employers preferred to

employ high-performing graduates from non-ICT courses and train them in ICT

technical skills [14] rather than employ graduates with poor professional skills. These

professional skills were considered to be untrainable in the work environment and a

critical hurdle for employment [111, 73, 56]. It is now recognised that both technical

and professional skill development is required to equip ICT graduates for the 21st

century digital economy [2]. To enhance the employability of ICT graduates it is

necessary to achieve professional competence with the employability skill set, which is

a combination of ICT technical, non-technical (business), and professional skills [64].

For a course to result in graduates with professional competence with the employability

skill set, a relevant question for higher education ICT curriculum designers is:

• How can an ICT curriculum effectively include professional skill development to

enhance the employability of the graduates?

This question will be explored in detail in Chapter 3 of this thesis.

1.3 PURPOSE OF THE THESIS

The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the body of knowledge in ICT curriculum

design by addressing the core challenge outlined above for ICT higher education: how

to design ICT curriculum to increase the quantity of graduates professionally competent

with the employability skill set.

While numerous studies – that will be reviewed throughout the thesis – have suggested

potential solutions to the problem, these solutions are often untested or implemented

and analysed at the subject level only [3, 15, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 36, 38, 39, 42, 45,

46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 57, 59, 71, 72, 76, 78, 86, 90, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105,

11

106, 109, 112, 117, 120, 123, 124, 126]. This doctoral study is different however, as it

is a comprehensive evidence-based evaluation at the course level of an ICT curriculum

that implemented a variety of solutions, which has now been completed by several

cohorts of graduates.

The main aims for this thesis are to address the challenges for ICT higher education

related to the quantity and quality of graduates and to contribute to ICT curriculum

design knowledge and practice by identifying:

1. A process to classify potential ICT career outcomes and the required skill sets


2. A methodology to effectively include professional skill development throughout


3. Effective strategies with implementation techniques to increase ICT course



Poor curriculum design has serious implications for ICT graduates and the ICT

industry. ICT curriculum designers desire a positive outcome for commencing students

and assurance that the approaches adopted will result in professionally competent

graduates for the ICT industry. The impact and effectiveness of the knowledge

contributions from this thesis will be evaluated within the context of a specific ICT

curriculum case study implemented at the School of Computing and Information

Systems at the University of Tasmania (described below) that was endeavouring to

improve the quality and quantity of graduates. This comprehensive example is likely to

be relevant to other higher education providers with the same concerns and motivations.

1.3.1 Case study context

The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is the only university in the state and the (then)

School of Computing and Information Systems was responsible for developing

competent graduates for the local ICT industry. In 2014, the broad Tasmanian ICT

sector employed over 4500 people and generated industry value-add of more than $640

million, representing less than 1.6% of the Australian ICT sector total [114]. The

growth of the Tasmanian ICT sector had been constrained by skills shortages and lack

12

of qualified personnel consistently over the previous decade [114]. A potential source of

skilled personnel was tertiary ICT graduates from UTAS.

The School of Computing and Information Systems had been externally reviewed in

late 2011 and it was a recommendation of the review panel that a new undergraduate

ICT course be implemented. This presented an opportunity to address the issues related

to the supply of competent graduates for the local industry.

A curriculum design working party was formed consisting of eight academics, which

was led by Nicole Herbert, this thesis author, who had 14 years of teaching experience

with a focus on work-integrated learning and capstone experiences. Figure 1.1

illustrates the design timeline culminating in the evaluation. The curriculum renewal

design process started in 2012, and the resultant course was first offered in 2014. This

doctoral study is a critical reflection of the design and implementation of this ICT

course and its resultant impact on improving the quantity and quality of graduates.

Figure 1.1: Timeline of curriculum design and evaluation

1.3.1.1 UTAS quantity issues

As had been the case for tertiary ICT courses nationally, the ICT student numbers at

UTAS had stagnated and the course attrition rates were high; shown in Table 1.1 for the

Bachelor of Computing (BComp) and the Bachelor of Information Systems (BIS). In

2010 there were only 131 students that commenced the UTAS ICT undergraduate

courses, and by 2013 it had only risen to 167 students. It was imperative that the

courses attract more students to cover local skill shortages. As Tasmania is an island

state with a small population of around half a million people there is a limited domestic

market of tertiary applicants, so there was reliance on international enrolments to meet

local industry demand for skilled personnel and to supplement university income to

offer courses. International enrolments were in decline, with around 31% in 2011

dropping to 22% in 2012 – while the national average across all courses had only

2012-2013Course Structure Design

and Development

2014-2016Subject Iterative Design

and Development

2017-2019Course and Subject

Evaluation

13

declined to 27% [11]. Local industry was concerned by the low female participation in

the ICT courses, around 9%, whereas the national average across all courses was 56%

[11].

At the time, when there was low student growth, the focus needed to be on retention of

the existing students. Attrition rates in regional universities are notoriously high. UTAS

had a high attrition rate, above 33% [11]. In 2012, the attrition rates in the ICT courses

at UTAS were high, around 60% for the BComp and 83% for the BIS. This was

significantly higher than the national average of around 43% for ICT courses [12]. It

was imperative that experiences were improved and the course attrition rates reduced to

produce more graduates to meet industry demand.

Table 1.1: Student numbers for the BComp and BIS at UTAS from 2010-2013

BComp BIS

2010 2011 2012 2013 2010 2011 2012 2013

Commencing students 116 121 123 140 15 16 12 27

Withdrawal rate 55% 55% 60% 75.7% 47% 44% 83% 63%

International student ratio 22% 28% 21% 15.7% 60% 56% 25% 59.3%

Female student ratio 8% 11% 10% 7.9% 20% 25% 0% 11.1%

Graduate rate 45% 45% 40% 24.3% 53% 56% 17% 37.0%

1.3.1.2 UTAS quality issues

The 30+ Tasmanian ICT industry members that were consulted as part of the

curriculum renewal process indicated that while UTAS graduates were strong in

foundational technical ICT skills, there was desire for an improvement in their business

skills and in their professional skills [61, 62]. They indicated a clear demand for ICT

graduates with effective professional skills (particularly communication and teamwork

skills) along with other non-technical (business) ICT skills (including project

management, business analysis, sourcing and integrating systems) in addition to broad

technical ICT domain skills (such as programming, networking, security and databases)

[61]. Due to the shortage of skilled ICT personnel, employers were not interested in

extending the duration of study for students to acquire business and professional skills,

nor in solutions that lowered a graduate’s technical foundation to acquire professional

skills [64]. The industry members were in favour of including the professional skill

14

development throughout the curriculum because they believed the students needed

opportunities to practice these skills [64].

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS FOR THIS THESIS

To achieve the aims for this doctoral study as described in the purpose of this thesis, the

overarching research question explored in this thesis is:

RQ: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to increase the quantity of ICT

graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set?

To develop a coherent and comprehensive answer to this research question, it was

necessary to explore two sub-questions.

The first research sub-question is related to the desire to identify processes and

strategies to create an ICT curriculum that enhances the employability of graduates by

achieving professional competence with the employability skill set.

SRQ1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to enhance the employability of

a graduate?

The second research sub-question is related to the desire to increase course

commencements and reduce course attrition to increase the quantity of graduates to

meet industry demand.

SRQ2: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed and delivered to

increase the quantity of graduates?

This thesis is presented as a series of peer-reviewed papers, with each paper exploring a

research question that helps reach an answer to these research sub-questions. The

hierarchy of research questions explored in this thesis are presented in Table 1.2.

15

Table 1.2: Hierarchy of research questions for the thesis

SRQ1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to enhance the employability of a graduate?

RQ1.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, informed by the attainable ICT graduate careers, to enhance the employability of a graduate?

RQ1.1.1: What is a process to identify a range of graduate career outcomes that can direct the design of an ICT higher education curriculum to attract new applicants?

RQ1.1.2: What is a process to identify the essential skills for an ICT graduate for them to gain employment in the ICT industry?

RQ1.1.3: How can ICT career outcomes relevant to local and national ICT industry and the related SFIA skills directly inform the development of an integrated ICT curriculum?

RQ1.1.4: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, informed by the attainable ICT graduate careers to enhance the employability of a graduate, while adhering to all the constraints imposed by the ICT industry and the tertiary institution?

RQ1.2: How can an ICT curriculum effectively include professional skill development to enhance the employability of the graduates?

RQ1.2.1: How can professional skill development be integrated within an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of a graduate?

RQ1.2.2: How does integrating the development of professional skills across an ICT curriculum impact on a graduate’s competency?

RQ1.2.3: What are effective strategies to ensure academic rigor in the assessment process of an industry placement experience included in an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates?

RQ1.2.4: What are effective strategies for coordinating team-based industry capstone experiences included in an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates?

SRQ2: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed, and delivered to increase the quantity of graduates?

RQ2.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed and delivered that amends student misconceptions of the field of ICT, and improves student perceptions, engagement, motivation, and academic success?

RQ2.1.1: What is the impact of strategies designed to amend misconcepcons and improve percepcons, mocvacon, engagement and academic success on the quancty of graduates?

RQ2.1.2: What is the impact of increasing student engagement in the first-year of an ICT course on academic success?

RQ2.1.3: What ATAR cut-off is useful for predicting the academic success of students in an ICT course?

RQ2.1.4: What pre-tertiary factors, in combination with a lack academic success, affect when a student is likely to withdraw from an ICT course?

16

1.5 SYNOPSIS AND STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

This thesis is comprised of peer reviewed papers that are presented as they were

published or submitted for publication. The chapters along with the supplementary

material in the appendices have been combined with the peer-reviewed papers to

present a coherent thesis. An outline of the thesis structure is provided in Table 1.3 that

illustrates the relationship between the research questions and peer-reviewed papers in

blue and supplemental material in grey.

Table 1.3: Structure of the thesis with peer-reviewed work highlighted

Chapter 1: Introduction

Desig

n

Chapter 2: Design of an ICT curriculum informed by intended graduate career outcomes and the required skill sets to enhance the employability of graduates

RQ1.1.1 Paper 1: Identifying career outcomes as the first step in ICT curricula development

RQ1.1.2 Paper 2: Stakeholder-led curriculum redesign

RQ1.1.3 Paper 3: Career outcomes and SFIA as tools to design ICT curriculum

RQ1.1.4 Paper 4: ICT curriculum and course structure: the great balancing act

Qua

lity

Chapter 3: Design and development of an ICT curriculum with integrated professional skill development to enhance the employability of graduates

RQ1.2.1 Paper 5: A methodology to integrate professional skill development throughout an ICT curriculum

RQ1.2.2 Paper 6: Integrating the development of professional skills throughout an ICT curriculum improves a graduate's competency

RQ1.2.3 Paper 7: An assessment scheme for short-term placements

RQ1.2.4 Paper 8: Reflections on 17 years of ICT capstone project coordination: effective strategies for managing clients, teams and assessment

Qua

ntity

Chapter 4: Evaluation of strategies to increase ICT course commencements and reduce ICT course attrition to impact on the quantity of graduates

RQ2.1.1 Paper 9: Empirical analysis of strategies employed within an ICT curriculum to increase the quantity of graduates

RQ2.1.2 Paper 10: Impact of student engagement on first year ICT performance

RQ2.1.3 Paper 11: Is the ATAR a useful predictor of success in ICT: an empirical study

RQ2.1.4 Paper 12: An exploratory study of pre-tertiary factors affecting attrition within an ICT degree

Chapter 5: Conclusion including findings, implications and future work

Chapter 6: Appendices

Chapter 7: References

17

This introduction contains a statement of the problem with a summary of the relevant

literature, outlines the purpose of this thesis, and identifies the research questions for

this thesis. Additional relevant literature is reviewed in the papers and chapter

introductions.

Chapter 2 contains a brief explanation of the design process and four papers that are

presented as they were published. They provide the detail on the processes that were

used to identify the intended career outcomes and relevant skill sets using the Skills

Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) [108] and how this informed the

development of the case study ICT curriculum designed to enhance the employability of

the graduates.

Chapter 3 contains an explanation of the goals that were set during the subject design

phase and an overview of the case study course structure. The chapter includes four

papers that are presented as they were submitted for publication. The first two papers

provide a methodology to integrate professional skill development throughout an ICT

curriculum and an evaluation of the impact of integrating professional skill development

on a graduate’s competency. The last two published papers then focus on the

implementation of two subjects designed by this thesis author that incorporate work-

integrated learning to further professional skill development to increase the

employability of the graduates and motivate the students towards an ICT career.

Chapter 4 evaluates the academic outcomes of students that have commenced the case

study curriculum to analyse the impact on the quantity of graduates. The first of four

papers presented in this chapter provides an empirical analysis of the strategies adopted

to increase course commencements and reduce course attrition. The second paper

explores a first-year subject developed by this thesis author that employed strategies to

improve student engagement. The third paper was a preliminary empirical analysis into

the entry requirements for domestic students entering the course to determine if changes

were possible that could increase course commencements. The fourth paper is an

empirical analysis that explores when a student is likely to withdraw from the course

and identifies appropriate intervention measures to apply to reduce course attrition.

18

The thesis concludes with a summary of the significant findings of this research and

identifies further research that could be undertaken.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS THESIS

This doctoral study addresses the challenge: how to design ICT curriculum to increase

the quantity of graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set. The

findings in this thesis will be of benefit to both the ICT industry and ICT higher

education at a national and international level. The growing demand for professionally

competent ICT graduates justifies the need for more effective ICT curriculum design.

The critical reflection of an ICT curriculum design process that involved significant

interaction with industry to align the resultant curriculum with the intended graduate

career outcomes has resulted in an augmentation to the ACS recommended curriculum

design process [8]. Practical “how to” guidance has been identified along with example

constraints, resources and outputs, to illustrate a process that enables the classification

of potential ICT career outcomes and the required skill sets for ICT graduates for the

purpose of designing a curriculum. A strategy has been developed to use that

information to design and structure an ICT curriculum based on attainable career

outcomes and related skill sets. This doctoral study found that an ICT curriculum that is

aligned with the intended graduate career outcomes and related skill sets can increase

course commencements and enhance the employability of graduates. This opportunity

to design an ICT curriculum using a skills reference model, such as that provided by

SFIA, has found that the approach equips graduates with the necessary skill sets for the

intended career outcomes.

The case study analysis has resulted in the identification of a methodology to integrate

professional skill development within an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability

of graduates. The experience reports from the implementation of work-integrated

learning experiences within the ICT curriculum have provided effective implementation

techniques for strategies to increase engagement and motivation to reduce course

attrition. This doctoral study found that professional skill development can be integrated

19

within an ICT curriculum without degrading technical skill development to result in

professionally competent graduates.

The empirical evaluation has provided a substantive contribution to the body of

knowledge in ICT curriculum design by identifying effective strategies with

implementation techniques to increase course commencements and reduce course

attrition to increase the quantity of graduates. This opportunity to evaluate an entire

curriculum has given rise to several implications for the entry pathways of commencing

students and the need for greater support mechanisms intentionally provided to sectors

of the student population to improve academic success and reduce course attrition. This

doctoral study found that ensuring students are engaged with academic learning

activities and motivated to complete their course by the career opportunities can reduce

ICT course attrition.

20

CHAPTER 2

Design of an ICT curriculum informed

by intended graduate career

outcomes and the required skill sets

to enhance the employability of

graduates

21

2.1 INTRODUCTION

As described in the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 of this thesis describes the process

for designing a new information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum that

is aligned with the intended career outcomes in order to enhance the employability of its

graduates. Within this chapter, four published papers are presented to describe this

process in detail.

The need to design a curriculum aligned towards the intended career outcomes is a

response to the rapidly changing nature of the ICT sector, and the transformation of ICT

career outcomes and skills that employers are demanding [13, 32, 14, 101]. In order to

meet this demand ICT curriculum designers need to acquire a thorough knowledge of

current ICT career opportunities and link the ICT curriculum with specific career

outcomes [29, 117] to result in professionally competent graduates for the range of

graduate career outcomes available [21, 14, 101, 117] and attract a larger and more

diverse range of applicants.

This chapter will address the research questions:


a graduate?

RQ1.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, informed by the attainable ICT

graduate careers, to enhance the employability of a graduate?

The chapter will contribute to ICT curriculum design knowledge and practice by

identifying:

1. A process to classify potential ICT career outcomes and the required skill sets

for ICT graduates for the purpose of designing a curriculum; and

2. A strategy to design and structure an ICT curriculum based on career outcomes

and skill sets to enhance the employability of graduates.

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2.2 A PROCESS TO GUIDE ICT CURRICULUM DESIGN

As previously described, in 2012-2014 the University of Tasmania (UTAS) was

undergoing an ICT curriculum renewal process. During the process a comprehensive

study of national and international ICT curriculum was undertaken to ensure alignment

with externally-endorsed curriculum in the discipline fields of computer science,

information technology and information systems [7] and the inclusion of fundamental

ICT knowledge that was informed by experts in ICT curriculum design. The

development process to renew the curriculum was informed by the seven-step approach

recommended by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) [8], shown in Table 2.1, that

focused on career outcomes and related skills sets to design a course that produced

graduates with the desired skills for specific ICT roles.

Table 2.1: ACS seven-step approach to curriculum design [8]

1 Identify potential ICT roles that could be undertaken by graduates of a given program of study.

2 Identify the skills required by professionals in a given ICT career role.

3 Identify the level of autonomy and responsibility developed.

4 Identify the ICT Role-Specific Knowledge required to practice the skills.

5 Identify Complementary Knowledge that supports the skill set or that broadens student employability.

6 Design a course structure that incorporates ICT Role Specific Knowledge with the Core Body of Knowledge and other Complementary Knowledge as part of a holistic program of study.

7 Collect artefacts to demonstrate that skills have been developed by students to an appropriate level.

Step 2 of the ACS approach requires the identification of the necessary skills for the

career outcomes identified in step 1. The ACS recommended using the Skills

Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) [108] in the identification of ICT skills.

SFIA is a framework for describing and managing the skills needed by ICT

professionals. SFIA provides a common reference model and nomenclature which

allows an international understanding of ICT skills and enables the identification of skill

sets for different career outcomes. Unfortunately, there is limited literature available on

23

how to identify career outcomes and related SFIA skill sets and how to use that

knowledge in the development of ICT curricula [56, 117, 120].

The four papers in this chapter address this problem and augment steps one to six of the

ACS approach [8], shown in Table 2.1, with specific techniques for identifying potential

ICT career outcomes and the required ICT skill set. These four papers were

acknowledged in an ALTA8 good teaching practices study [105] as being a well-

documented approach to adopting SFIA in curriculum design.

The papers included in this chapter of the thesis clearly articulate the process followed

to identify the potential ICT career outcomes and the strategy used to design an ICT

curriculum based on the intended career outcomes to enhance the employability of the

graduates. SFIA was used to identify the technical and non-technical skills of the

employability skill set. The development of these skills was then integrated throughout

the curriculum using a process described in the papers and in Chapter 3 of this thesis.

8 ALTA is the ACDICT Learning and Teaching Academy. ACDICT is the Australian Council of Deans of ICT.

24

2.3 PAPER 1: IDENTIFYING CAREER OUTCOMES AS THE FIRST STEP IN ICT CURRICULA DEVELOPMENT

When the School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study curriculum

renewal process started in 2012 it had been hypothesised by researchers [1, 87, 117, 8]

that basing ICT curriculum on intended career outcomes would improve employment

prospects for graduates but there was very little literature describing how to identify

relevant career outcomes and the related skills required by graduates. This paper

addresses that problem and describes the process used to complete the first three steps

of the ACS approach [8], shown in Table 2.1, during an ICT curriculum renewal effort.

The ACS steps are augmented with specific techniques for identifying potential ICT

career outcomes and the required ICT skill set and the skill level of responsibility,

including details on how feedback from each step was used to refine the list of career

outcomes and skills. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.1.1: What is a process to identify a range of graduate career outcomes that

can direct the design of an ICT higher education curriculum to attract new

applicants?

This paper was written at 8 months into the first-year of the design process and was

published in early 2013. The Publication Statement signed by the co-authors can be

found in the preface section of this thesis.

Some significant research papers on using career outcomes and SFIA in curriculum

development have referenced the approach outlined in this paper [105, 119, 120]. Von

Konsky et al. [119] proposed an alternative approach to the use of tables for

representing the SFIA skills to be embedded in the curriculum and demonstrated that

their extended radar diagrams provide a compact visual representation of skill sets.

Diagrams can facilitate dialogue between academics and industry representatives to

ensure that an ICT curriculum equips graduates with the necessary skill sets for the ICT

profession [119].

This article has been removed for copyright or proprietary reasons.

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2.4 PAPER 2: STAKEHOLDER-LED CURRICULUM REDESIGN

The fast-changing nature of ICT and the impact this has on the expectations of

employers suggests that there needs to be close communication between universities

and industry to identify relevant ICT skills for graduates of a curriculum [87]. ICT-

specific knowledge and skills, however, are not the only requirements of professionally

competent graduates. In a national ICT scoping study, Koppi and Naghdy [77] found

ICT employers held widespread views of deficiencies in the workplace readiness of new

graduates particularly regarding the development of essential professional skills such as

interpersonal and professional communications, business awareness and problem-

solving abilities.

As part of the School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study curriculum

renewal process over thirty industry members were interviewed to identify what skills

employers want to see in ICT graduates. This paper describes the outcomes from steps

four and five of the ACS approach [8], shown in Table 2.1, and reports on the process

used to identify these desired skills and the knowledge acquired about future career

opportunities. These interviews identified strong demand for graduates to possess

professional skills (such as communication and teamwork) coupled with other non-

technical skills (such as business analysis and project management) in addition to the

traditional ICT domain skills (including programming, networking and databases).

Employers desired ICT graduates with a broad range of ICT-specific knowledge and

with a depth of competency in at least one ICT technical area. It was these findings that

directed the development of the initial integrated curriculum. The research question

explored in this paper is:

RQ1.1.2: What is a process to identify the essential skills for an ICT graduate for

them to gain employment in the ICT industry?

This paper was written at 8 months into the first-year of the design process and was




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2.5 PAPER 3: CAREER OUTCOMES AND SFIA AS TOOLS TO DESIGN ICT CURRICULUM

Curriculum should be designed such that graduates can attain the skills for the

advertised ICT career outcomes [117]. The Skills Framework for the Information Age

(SFIA) is the world's most comprehensive definition of information technology skills

and provides a standardised view of a wide range of professional skills needed by

people working in ICT [108]. SFIA provides a framework for defining the skill set

required by graduates, but it has not yet been fully integrated into ICT curricula [56]. As

a result, there is limited literature focussing on how to relate an ICT curriculum to

identified career outcomes and the related SFIA skill sets.

This paper addresses that problem and describes how career outcomes and SFIA skills

were used as inputs for the School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study

curriculum design. SFIA was employed during the design process as it provides a

common reference model to communicate the value of a course to potential employers

so that they can comprehend the capability of graduates. It also enables potential

applicants to see how the course relates to the advertised career outcomes [118].

This paper reports on how step six of the ACS approach [8], shown in Table 2.1, was

completed to create an integrated curriculum that combines the required knowledge and

skills for the intended career outcomes with the ACS core body of knowledge and the

other essential skills. This paper summarises the information in Papers 1 and 2 and

illustrates how career outcomes and SFIA skills were used to construct an integrated

ICT curriculum. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.1.3: How can ICT career outcomes relevant to local and national ICT

industry and the related SFIA skills directly inform the development of an

integrated ICT curriculum?

This paper was written at 6 months into the second-year of the design process and

published in late 2013. The Publication Statement signed by the co-authors can be



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2.6 PAPER 4: ICT CURRICULUM AND COURSE STRUCTURE: THE GREAT BALANCING ACT

A study undertaken to investigate the drivers of curriculum change [54], discovered that

change is predominantly driven by outspoken individuals, budgetary constraints,

institutional requirements, current trends, and student demand. While attempting to

respond to such constraints and ever-changing technology it is easy to lose sight of the

focus on career outcomes for graduates when designing curricula [117].

The School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study curriculum renewal

process was instigated by an external school review that recommended the

implementation of a single course as well as limiting the number of coursework subjects

(due to a shrinking staff profile). The curriculum had to be attractive to domestic and

international applicants to increase course commencements. The course structure had to

adhere to the then University’s course structure policy and include the ACS core body

of knowledge for accreditation [8], which was essential to attract international students.

Finally, the renewed curriculum had to develop the necessary skills for a range of ICT

graduate career outcomes identified by the local and national ICT industry.

This paper summarises the information in papers 1-3 and provides a detailed account of

the process that was used to complete step six of the ACS approach [8], shown in Table

2.1, to design a course structure based on all the gathered information while adhering to

resourcing constraints. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.1.4: How can an ICT curriculum be designed informed by the attainable ICT

graduate careers to enhance the employability of a graduate, while adhering to

all the constraints imposed by the ICT industry and the tertiary institution?

This paper was written at 8 months into the second-year of the design process and was




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CHAPTER 3

Design and development of an ICT

curriculum with integrated

professional skill development to

enhance the employability of

graduates

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3.1 INTRODUCTION

As described in the introductory chapter of this thesis, Chapter 3 focuses on the core

challenge of improving the quality of ICT graduates to achieve professional competence

with the employability skill set to enhance the employability of the graduates. The focus

of this chapter will be on improving a graduate’s ability with professional skills. Four

papers are presented to describe the design approach at the curriculum level and provide

examples of how authentic learning experiences can be incorporated at the subject level

to enhance the employability of the graduates.

The necessity to design a curriculum that improved the quality of graduates was a

response to the growing national level concern that ICT graduates, while being strong in

foundational technical ICT skills, were weak in their professional skills, particularly in

relation to communication and teamwork skills [3, 27, 61, 77, 96, 14]. The 30+ ICT

industry members consulted at the start of the School of Computing and Information

Systems’ case study curriculum renewal process desired an “all-rounder” graduate with

a broad range of ICT knowledge covering the discipline fields of computer science,

information technology and information systems, but with a depth of competency in at

least one ICT technical area [61, 14]. Breadth of knowledge allows graduates to have

the ability to understand the diverse needs of clients and depth of technical capability

adds value to the employer’s business. The ICT industry employers that were consulted

indicated a clear demand for graduates to be ICT professionals with effective

professional skills (particularly communication and teamwork skills) along with other

non-technical (business) ICT skills (including project management, business analysis,

sourcing and integrating systems) in addition to technical ICT domain skills (such as

programming, networking, security and databases) [61].

As discussed in Chapter 2, SFIA was used in this curriculum renewal process to

facilitate the discussions between academics and ICT industry members to identify the

relevant career outcomes and to identify the technical and non-technical skills of the

employability skill set [62]. Von Konsky et al. [120] referenced this approach while

reviewing the role of SFIA in ensuring industry relevance in ICT curricula. Their study

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participants were critical of SFIA’s limited ability to address the professional skills

required for the ICT profession, particularly communication and teamwork.

This limitation will be addressed in this chapter, which will address the research

questions:


a graduate?

RQ1.2: How can an ICT curriculum effectively include professional skill

development to enhance the employability of the graduates?


identifying a methodology to effectively include professional skill development

throughout an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates.

To allow the reader to develop a deeper understanding of the School of Computing and

Information Systems case study curriculum, the purpose of the rest of this introduction

is to provide a brief explanation of the following critical concepts:

• Competency and professionally competent;

• Employability skill set;

• Integrated approach; and

• Case study course structure.

3.2 UNDERSTANDING COMPETENCY AND PROFESSIONALLY COMPETENT

In order to develop quality graduates, we must first understand the issue of competence.

The term competence links education with work-readiness and is the ability to perform a

task to a predetermined standard [7]. The 2017 Association for Computing Machinery

(ACM) Information Technology (IT) curriculum provides a succinct definition of IT

competence [7], illustrated in Figure 3.1.

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Figure 3.1: IT Competency = (Knowledge + Skills + Dispositions) in Professional

Context [7]

Competency is a series of abilities that when combined make a competent person within

a professional context [7]. Knowledge is an understanding of core concepts in ICT and

the ability to know what to do in new contexts. Skills refer to ICT capabilities that

demonstrate ability in how to apply knowledge. Skills develop over time with practice

and interaction with others. Dispositions are attitudes such as motivation and sensitivity

towards when and why to carry out tasks. Professional contexts can be simulated in a

learning environment by providing authentic experiences such as placement

experiences, projects with real clients, a reflective report on a complex project, or

presentations judged by external assessors [7]. Frezza et al. [49] are developing the

Competency Learning Framework (CoLeaF) to provide an international tool for

modelling graduate competencies linked to ICT courses. Their work adds to the above

definition of competency by recognising the presence of a “virtual or invisible

characteristic” that emerges during the performance of a challenging discipline task.

They identify competency as including “The personal qualities causally related to

effective performance in an area of work”.

Professional Context

Skills•How to•Know how

Knowledge•What to•Know what

Dispositions•Want to•Why to•When to Competency

• Ability

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A professionally competent ICT graduate can perform their duties within the ICT

profession to the required standard (quality) on graduation [7]. The ICT graduate has

acquired the ability to combine disciplinary knowledge with a range of skills and

appropriate dispositions to effectively accomplish real-world professional tasks using

the employability skill set.

3.3 UNDERSTANDING THE EMPLOYABILITY SKILL SET

A goal of the renewed curriculum was to enhance the employability of graduates by

increasing their professional competence with the employability skill set. Employability

is defined by Yorke and Knight [128] as “a set of achievements—skills, understandings

and personal attributes—that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be

successful in their chosen occupations, which benefits themselves, the workforce, the

community and the economy”.

The employability skill set for the renewed curriculum is a combination of ICT

technical, non-technical (business), and professional skills, suitable for a range of career

outcomes. As discussed in Chapter 2 of this thesis, the design process for the case study

curriculum identified 18 possible graduate career outcomes and 37 distinct SFIA skills

[62]. SFIA was used to identify the technical and non-technical skills of the

employability skill set for the renewed curriculum [62]. As discussed above, the

framework fails to address the professional skills required for the ICT profession [120].

A recent study by Hamilton et al. [56] found that the ICT employers involved in their

study thought that the graduates who they interviewed for jobs had the necessary

foundational technical skills. The ICT employers were more concerned about gauging

the professional skills of candidates, which they believe are vital for sustained,

successful ICT careers [111, 56].

Professional skills are transferrable skills that can be applied across disciplines,

industries and roles [44,56] and generally take longer to acquire as they require more

practice in different contexts than specific technical ICT skills [111]. The professional

skills are considered an essential component of employability by employers [44, 47],

and include such skills as problem solving, lifelong learning, critical thinking, logic,

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creativity, digital fluency, communication and teamwork skills [44, 37, 13]. One of the

key findings from an investigation conducted by Stevens and Norman [111] into how

the ICT industry defines a new recruit as ‘work-ready’ and ‘productive’ was that most

employers consider professional skills to be untrainable in the work environment and

consider them a critical hurdle for employment.

A mandatory requirement for the ACS accreditation process [8] is that an ICT course

include a final-year capstone project, as these projects require students to combine the

application of their technical and professional skills in a professional context. The

industry members that participated in the case study curriculum renewal process were

however, insistent that the graduates be articulate professionals and emphasised the

importance of including the professional skill development throughout the curriculum.

They believed the professional skills need more guided and deeper development and

that the students needed more opportunities to practice these skills than just the capstone

experience in their final-year [61, 64, 56].

Including development of the full employability skill set within a curriculum,

particularly professional skills, can be difficult [2, 111]. Within ICT there is a tension

between balancing discipline-specific content and professional skill development within

a standard timeframe of three years [2]. Due to the shortage of skilled ICT personnel,

Herbert et al. [61] and Stevens and Norman [111] found that employers were not

interested in extending the duration of study for students to acquire professional skills,

nor were they interested in solutions that lowered graduate’s technical foundation to

acquire professional skills.

Many researchers, whose work will be summarised in the first paper in this chapter,

have provided examples of how professional skills can be developed at the subject

level; however, most do not expand their approaches beyond one or two subjects and do

not identify the potential of a curriculum-wide approach [3, 22, 25, 38, 39, 42, 46, 50,

51, 52, 59, 71, 97, 99, 101, 27, 45, 47, 57, 106, 112, 124]. This doctoral study is

examining the hypothesis that developing professional skills throughout a curriculum

improves professional competence with the employability skill set and enhances the

employability of a graduate.

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Figure 3.2: Professional skills developed in ICT curriculum at UTAS

In the School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study curriculum, the

employability skill set development has been incorporated throughout a student’s

learning journey to allow the students numerous opportunities to practice these skills

across many ICT domains (such as system development, networks, databases, project

management) to develop depth of experience [38, 45, 71]. Introducing the development

of a professional skill into the early years of a curriculum can result in the students

being more confident and adept with that skill on graduation [56, 79]. The professional

skills identified during the curriculum design [62], using the process outlined in Chapter

2, for inclusion in the renewed curriculum are shown in Figure 3.2.

In the case study curriculum, professional skill development was integrated both

horizontally across units (subjects) within a year level, and vertically up through units at

each year level. A unit is a subject, and an undergraduate three-year course requires the

students to complete 24 units. A minimal number of units was identified, and each unit

maximizes its contribution by simultaneously developing a graduate’s competence in

the essential technical and/or non-technical ICT skills along with the required

professional skills. The integration approach meant it was not necessary to introduce

additional professional skill-based units.

•Problem-Solving•Analysing/Evaluating•Planning/Organisation•Lifelong Learning

•User-centred•Entrepreneurship•Independence•Initiative

•Teamwork•Leadership•Conflict resolution•Respect

•Written•Oral•Digital Fluency•Listening

Communication Collaboration

Critical ThinkingCreativity

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3.4 UNDERSTANDING THE INTEGRATED APPROACH

The cornerstone of the approach utilised was to create an integrated curriculum. The

development of an identified skill is not restricted to a single unit, rather it is spread

across a set of integrated units. When a skill is integrated within a unit, knowledge for

the skill is typically taught and practiced together with other knowledge and skills to

complete domain specific activities. Within a curriculum, it is not sufficient to have

activities that require students to practice a skill, including professional skills, without

providing the knowledge and guidance to help students develop the skill [27]. A focus

of the integrated approach is that the application of technical, non-technical and

professional skills is inextricably woven together to complete activities, just as they are

in professional practice [71, 2]. Competence in the professional, non-technical and

technical skill are assessed using the outputs from the activity and observed student

behaviours by assessors and using tools such as peer assessment [34]. Students are

provided with both formative and summative feedback on assessment items allowing

for continuous improvement [66].

The term “integrated” is also used here to describe how the curriculum is made up of

many components, be they the individual units or majors (8 units of integrated study) or

minors (4 units of integrated study), combined to form the three-year course. Integration

of skill development across a curriculum provides opportunities for practice and

reflective development, allowing students to obtain depth of learning and to make

connections across ICT domains (such as programming, networks, security, business

analysis) into professional practice [38, 45]. As discussed in Chapter 2 of this thesis, an

initial possible set of units was identified based on integrating the development of the

required SFIA skill set [62, 63] to achieve the identified graduate career outcomes.

3.5 UNDERSTANDING THE CASE STUDY COURSE STRUCTURE

A course structure was devised that included a compulsory ICT Professional major (8

units of integrated study spread across three years) that along with incrementally

developing the professional skills, shown in Figure 3.2, includes the development of

foundational technical knowledge (in the areas of programming and mathematics) and

74

non-technical business skills (such as project management and business analysis)

necessary to be employable in the ICT industry. This major culminates in the capstone

experience for final-year students. In this capstone experience students gain industry

experience by designing and implementing software for industry clients. This software

development project combines the application of the technical skills the student has

developed throughout their course and provides an authentic experience for the further

development of professional skills in a professional context.

Knowledge and skills developed in the ICT Professional major are also applied,

practiced and developed in learning and assessment activities in the domain context of

units in an accompanying minor and major. For example, the students practice

teamwork in many units across the curriculum. Developing a skill across domains

allows a student to develop a habitual use of the skill resulting in a competent graduate

who can quickly adapt to a professional context in industry [23, 36].

The ICT Professional major sits alongside the IT minor (4 units of integrated study

across two years) providing the technical skills in databases, web systems, networks,

and operating systems with cybersecurity integrated within each unit. Students choose

their second major from either a Software Development (SD) major or Games and

Creative Technology (GCT) major. Both majors provide depth in programming,

software design and development, and user experience; though the GCT major is

targeted towards game-related career outcomes (such as games developer, games

designer) using programming languages and development processes more suited to

those careers. The SD major aimed for a much broader range of career outcomes, such

as software developer, software designer, system administrator, network designer,

systems analyst, or business analyst. The range of topics in the final-year of the SD

major allow the broad range of career outcomes. The course structure also includes four

elective units, allowing students to pursue their individual interests. This structure

creates graduates with broad ICT knowledge and deep technical expertise, and with

significant professional skills to ensure professionally competent graduates [67].

Figure 3.3 illustrates the structure of the case study curriculum with the SD major [116]

(shown in yellow), the ICT Professional reversed major (shown in green), and the IT

minor (shown in blue). Figure 3.4 is an illustration of the case study curriculum with the

75

GCT major [116] (shown in lavender). The ICT Professional major is a reversed major

as it has four units at the first-year level providing a broad foundation of knowledge and

skills, while a non-reversed major has four units at the third-year level providing depth

with technical skills.

Year 1, Semester 1

KIT105 ICT Professional Practices

KIT101 Programming Fundamentals KIT102 Data Science

KIT108 Artificial Intelligence

Year 1, Semester 2

KIT106 ICT Impact and Emerging Technology

KIT103 Computational Science

KIT104 ICT Architecture and Operating Systems

KIT107 Programming

Year 2, Semester 1

KIT203 ICT Project Management and

Modelling

Four electives

KIT202 Secure Web Programming

KIT205 Data Structures and Algorithms

Year 2, Semester 2

KIT204 ICT Solutions Analysis for Business

KIT201 Data Networks and Security

KIT206 Software Design and Development

Year 3, Semester 1 KIT301 ICT Project A

KIT304 Server Administration and Security Assurance

KIT305 Mobile Application

Development

Year 3, Semester 2

KIT302 ICT Project B KIT303 ICT Systems Acquisition and Integration

Major elective

Figure 3.3: Case study course structure with Software Development major

Year 1, Semester 1

KIT105 ICT Professional Practices

KIT101 Programming Fundamentals

KIT102 Data Science KIT109 Games Fundamentals

Year 1, Semester 2

KIT106 ICT Impact and Emerging Technology

KIT103 Computational Science

KIT104 ICT Architecture and Operating Systems KIT107 Programming

Year 2, Semester 1

KIT203 ICT Project Management and

Modelling

Four Electives

KIT202 Secure Web Programming

KIT205 Data Structures and Algorithms

Year 2, Semester 2

KIT204 ICT Solutions Analysis for Business

KIT201 Data Networks and Security

KIT207 Games Design and Production

Year 3, Semester 1 KIT301 ICT Project A

KIT307 Computer Graphics and Animation

KIT305 Mobile Application

Development

Year 3, Semester 2

KIT302 ICT Project B KIT308 Multicore Architecture and

Programming Major elective

Figure 3.4: Case study course structure with Games and Creative Technology

major

This chapter consists of four papers. The first paper describes a broadly applicable

methodology to integrate the development of the professional skills within an ICT

curriculum. The second paper reports on a longitudinal study to explore the impact of

76

the integrated approach on the professional competence of graduates. The last two

papers describe the development and delivery of the capstone experience units within

the ICT Professional major and an elective industry placement unit, designed to

incorporate work-integrated learning experiences for professional skill development.

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3.6 PAPER 5: A METHODOLOGY TO INTEGRATE PROFESSIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT THROUGHOUT AN ICT CURRICULUM

ICT curriculum needs to result in professionally competent graduates that will be able to

find employment in their chosen industry on graduation. Several studies have reported

growing concern that ICT graduates, while being strong in technical ICT skills, are

weaker in their professional skills, in particular their ability to communicate and

collaborate effectively in the workplace [14, 77, 96]. Many researchers provide

examples of how professional skills can be developed at the subject level; however,

most do not expand their approaches beyond one or two subjects [3, 22, 25, 38, 39, 42,

46, 50, 51, 52, 59, 71, 97, 99, 101]. While it had been hypothesised that integrating

professional skill development throughout a curriculum would improve the

employability of graduates based on outcomes from these studies, there was no

comprehensive example of a curriculum-wide approach that had been thoroughly

quantitatively analysed to identify the extent of inclusion necessary to achieve


The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to assist ICT curriculum

designers to include professional skill development across an ICT curriculum without

degrading the development of technical skills. The efficacy of this methodology is

demonstrated with the case study ICT curriculum that has integrated professional skill

development throughout the curriculum. The provision of a comprehensive case study

and a methodology could act as an evidence-based exemplar for ICT curriculum

designers to integrate professional skill development throughout an ICT curriculum,

leading to professionally competent and employable ICT graduates. The research

question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.2.1: How can professional skill development be integrated within an ICT

curriculum to enhance the employability of a graduate?

This paper will be published in 2020. The Publication Statement signed by the co-

authors can be found in the preface section of this thesis.


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3.7 PAPER 6: INTEGRATING THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONAL SKILLS THROUGHOUT A CURRICULUM IMPROVES A GRADUATE'S COMPETENCY

While it had been hypothesised that integrating professional skill development

throughout a curriculum would improve the competency of graduates, there was no

comprehensive example of an entire curriculum approach that had evidence of its

effectiveness. The provision of such a case study could reassure curriculum designers

that the approach can lead to professionally competent graduates suitable for

employment in the ICT industry.

This paper reports on a longitudinal study from 2012 to 2018 that provided strong

evidence that integrating professional skill development across an entire ICT curriculum

significantly improved a graduate’s competency with professional skills without having

a detrimental impact on their competency with ICT technical skills. The research

question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.2.2: How does integrating the development of professional skills across an

ICT curriculum impact on a graduate’s competency?

This paper has been submitted for publication and the Publication Statement signed by

the co-authors can be found in the preface section of this thesis.

Addendum: Post submission of this thesis, this paper was reformatted and submitted to a

different international conference and published in mid-July.

Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna.

2020. Integrating the development of professional skills throughout a curriculum

improves a graduate’s competency. 2020 International Conference on

Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV,

USA, 2020.


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3.8 PAPER 7: AN ASSESSMENT SCHEME FOR SHORT-TERM PLACEMENTS

There has been significant research conducted into the benefits of work-integrated

learning (WIL) for improving the student learning experience and its impact on their

confidence, motivation and professional skill development [96, 94, 80, 17, 24]. Pilgrim

[96] conducted a survey of WIL practices in Australian ICT courses in 2012 and made

several recommendations on implementing WIL experiences. Jackson [73] has

produced some seminal work in the areas of WIL and graduate employability and noted

that placement experiences give students a better understanding of roles and

expectations of their chosen occupation. Billet [24] identified that merely providing

practice-based experiences for students is insufficient unless those experiences are

enriched through preparation, engagement and opportunities to reflect on what they

have learnt by these experiences.

During the curriculum design discussions for the School of Computing and Information

Systems case study curriculum, industry members expressed interest in providing

placement type experiences to the students as they saw potential for such an experience

to increase the employability of the graduates by providing them with opportunities to

apply their learning in a professional context. As part of the design and development

phase of the renewed curriculum this thesis author undertook to design a short-term

placement experience for students that they could undertake over the Australian summer

between second- and third-year of an undergraduate course. The challenge was to

incorporated academic rigor so that it was compliant with university and government

policy and procedures for inclusion within a tertiary curriculum.

This paper was published in 2017 and is a detailed account of the short-term placement

experience that has been developed to improve professional skill development and

enhance the employability of graduates. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.2.3: What are effective strategies to ensure academic rigor in the assessment

process of an industry placement experience included in an ICT curriculum to

enhance the employability of graduates?


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3.9 PAPER 8: REFLECTIONS ON 17 YEARS OF ICT CAPSTONE PROJECT COORDINATION: EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING CLIENTS, TEAMS AND ASSESSMENT

Capstone projects provide a solution to the problem of increasing the employability of

graduates by embedding authentic experiences within the learning environment that

enables them to transition successfully to employment. Capstone projects are often

included within an ICT curriculum to develop essential employability skills but there

are many challenging aspects in coordinating a team-based capstone experience to

ensure the necessary skill development.

Capstone experiences are essential within an accredited ICT course [8], and there are

seminal resources available for coordinators [48, 35]. There have been numerous

resources published since these seminal works, including research undertaken by this

thesis author who has a long scholarly history in designing and developing ICT

capstone project experiences for final-year students – Appendix B contains four such

scholarly articles that were published mid-career. Those articles summarise the research

that had been undertaken in the areas of teamwork, testing, project assessment, and self

and peer assessment. This prior research heavily influenced the implementation

techniques adopted for the inclusion of professional skill development, particularly

teamwork and communication, throughout the renewed curriculum.

This paper reflects on 17 years of capstone project coordination and is a paper that was

published in 2018. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ1.2.4: What are effective strategies for coordinating team-based industry

capstone experiences included in an ICT curriculum to enhance the

employability of graduates?


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CHAPTER 4

Evaluation of strategies to increase

ICT course commencements and

reduce ICT course attrition to impact

on the quantity of graduates

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4.1 INTRODUCTION

As described in the introductory chapter of this thesis, Chapter 4 focuses on the core

challenge of improving the quantity of information and communication technology

(ICT) graduates. Within this chapter, four papers are presented that evaluate the

strategies adopted throughout the School of Computing and Information Systems case

study curriculum to increase ICT course commencements and reduce ICT course

attrition to determine if they had an impact on the quantity of graduates.

As previously discussed, rapidly evolving technology has resulted in a continuous

demand for competent ICT graduates, both nationally and internationally [29]. There

has been some significant growth in ICT course commencements nationally in recent

years, with a 19% increase from 2015 to 2016 which was followed by a 28% increase

from 2016 to 2017 [11]. International student commencements in ICT courses have had

a huge influence on this growth, with a 38% rise in international student

commencements in ICT courses from 2016 to 2017 [11], a significant turnaround since

the start of this study in 2012. Even with these recent increases there is still concern

about the quantity of the ICT graduates not meeting the industry demand. As previously

discussed, in 2019 the Australian Computer Society (ACS) released data forecasting

that Australia will require an additional 100,000 ICT specialist workers by 2024 [40].

The ACS also reported that domestic undergraduate enrolments increased from a low of

around 19,000 in 2010 to 30,000 in 2017, however, this growth is not large enough to

meet the forecasted demand for graduates and it is further degraded by a high course

attrition rate [40]. Even though there has been steady growth in completions since 2012,

nationally there were only 4,400 domestic undergraduate completions in 2017 [40]. The

low quantity of ICT graduates will impact on the growth of all sectors and reduce

Australia’s ability to compete in the future digital economy [36]. It is imperative that

completion rates in ICT courses improve for the continued growth of the ICT sector.

This chapter will address the research questions:

SRQ2: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to increase the quantity of

graduates?

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RQ2.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed and delivered that

amends student misconceptions of the field of ICT, and improves student

perceptions, engagement, motivation, and academic success?


identifying effective strategies with implementation techniques to increase ICT course



The four papers included in this chapter of the thesis contrast in their evaluation of the

School of Computing and Information Systems case study curriculum. The first paper

provides an empirical analysis of the impact of strategies to increase ICT course

commencements and reduce ICT course attrition by comparing the academic outcomes

for students who had undertaken the renewed curriculum with those who completed the

previous curriculum. The second paper explores a first-year unit that employed

strategies to improve student engagement and academic success. The third paper was a

preliminary empirical analysis undertaken early in the evaluation phase (mid-2017 of

this study) into the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) entry requirements for

domestic students to determine if a change was warranted to increase course

commencements. The final paper is a more comprehensive empirical analysis that

explores a range of pre-tertiary demographic factors – such as gender, citizenship, age,

and entry qualification – to determine if any could be used to predict student withdrawal

from the course and hence inform the development of intervention measures to improve

student retention.

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4.2 PAPER 9: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF STRATEGIES EMPLOYED WITHIN AN ICT CURRICULUM TO INCREASE THE QUANTITY OF GRADUATES

As described in the introduction to this thesis, the low quantity of ICT graduates is of

concern to the ICT industry as it reduces Australia’s ability to compete in the digital

economy [36]. The School of Computing and Information Systems case study

curriculum employed various strategies to amend student misconceptions and improve

student perceptions, motivation, engagement, and academic success within an ICT

curriculum with the intent to increase the number of ICT graduates without reducing

graduate competency to meet the local industry demand [114].

The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical analysis using data collected over a

significant time period to evaluate the collective changes to course commencements and

course attrition. This doctoral study found there was evidence of a significant reduction

in course attrition and of a partial increase to course commencements. The results of this

evaluation are valuable to ICT curriculum designers who need strategies and effective

implementation techniques to positively impact on the quantity of graduates. The

research question explored in this paper is:

RQ2.1.1: What is the impact of strategies designed to amend misconceptions and

improve perceptions, motivation, engagement and academic success on the

quantity of graduates?

This paper will be published in 2020. The Publication Statement signed by the co-


Addendum: Post submission of this thesis, this paper was reformatted and submitted to a

different international conference and published in mid-July.

Nicole Herbert, Erik Wapstra, David Herbert, Kristy de Salas, Tina Acuna.

2020. Empirical Analysis of Strategies Employed within an ICT Curriculum to

Increase the Quantity of Graduates. 2020 International Conference on

Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), Las Vegas, NV,

USA, 2020.


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4.3 PAPER 10: IMPACT OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT ON FIRST YEAR ICT PERFORMANCE

As previously discussed, there is widespread concern about the lack of student

engagement and academic success, particularly at first-year, and the influence of this on

attrition rates in ICT courses [28, 31, 86, 95, 96, 85, 58, 109].

KIT105 ICT Professional Practices is a first-year unit (subject) within the School of

Computing and Information Systems case study curriculum. This unit is undertaken by

most students in their first semester and introduces a range of ICT topics and

professional skills: communication, teamwork, ICT careers and SFIA, user-centred

design, entrepreneurship, cybercrime, cybersecurity, ethics and professional standards.

The unit uses a flipped-classroom approach [83] to improve student engagement by

facilitating a significant amount of interaction between students and their peers. The

flipped-classroom takes learning from being an individual activity to one where the

student is engaged by cooperative tasks [83]. The social nature of flipped-classroom

reduces the social isolation of students, which has been shown to lead to withdrawal

from a course [100, 22, 99, 95, 23].

This paper was published in 2017 and is an experience report for this unit that was

developed and refined over four years by the thesis author and evaluates the impact of

increasing student engagement on academic performance. The research question

explored in this paper is:

RQ2.1.2: What is the impact of increasing student engagement in the first-year of

an ICT course on academic success?


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4.4 PAPER 11: IS THE ATAR A USEFUL PREDICTOR OF SUCCESS IN ICT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

In 2017, declining domestic commencements in the renewed curriculum triggered a

review of the domestic entrance requirements for the course. There was concern that

lowering the entrance requirements would simply increase the course attrition rate [123,

11]. There were also discussions about raising the entrance requirements as there was

evidence that the entry scheme cut-off rank was perceived by potential applicants as a

proxy for perceived quality [74], and historically, ICT tertiary courses were not

attracting high performing pre-tertiary year 12 students [12].

This study, conducted in early 2017, explored the academic outcomes for students that

had entered the School of Computing and Information Systems’ case study curriculum

with an Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR). The ATAR is a measure of a

student's overall pre-tertiary academic achievement [115]. While there are some studies

that indicate the ATAR is not a reliable predictor of future academic success for

students with scores below 70 [89, 91], for most tertiary courses across Australia, the

selection of year 12 domestic applicants is based on an ATAR, on the premise that

selection based on a student’s overall academic achievement prior to university is a

predictor of success for tertiary study [26]. This study also explored the impact of prior

learning in programming or mathematics on the academic outcomes. The purpose of the

study was to investigate if a change to the current ATAR entry requirement or

expectations of prior learning in the fields of programming or mathematics could result

in increased course commencements without impacting the course attrition rate. The

research question explored is:

RQ2.1.3: What ATAR cut-off is useful for predicting the academic success of

students in an ICT course?

This paper was published in 2018 and the Publication Statement signed by the co-



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4.5 PAPER 12: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF FACTORS AFFECTING ATTRITION WITHIN AN ICT DEGREE

As previously explored, academic success is a major factor in course attrition and ICT

students who pass subjects are more likely to continue [109]. Tertiary institutions are

increasingly implementing intervention measures to improve academic success such as

mentoring, academic progression interviews, and additional study sessions [28]. These

intervention measures are time and resource intensive and are mostly limited to the

students identified as in need after repeated failure.

This paper is an empirical analysis that explores whether different pre-tertiary factors,

including gender, citizenship, age, and entry qualification, affect academic success. This

study seeks to establish that if there is a relationship between these pre-tertiary factors

and a student’s level of academic success, how long such a relationship impacts on their

success. This paper explores whether these different pre-tertiary factors, influence when

intervention measures could have a greater impact on a student’s ability to pass or

decision to withdraw from the course. Academic advisors can use this information to

apply appropriate intervention measures at times when they are most likely to be

effective at reducing course attrition. The research question explored in this paper is:

RQ2.1.4: What pre-tertiary factors, in combination with a lack academic success,

affect when a student is likely to withdraw from an ICT course?

This paper has been accepted for publication in early 2020 and the Publication

Statement signed by the co-authors can be found in the preface section.


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CHAPTER 5

Conclusion including findings,

implications and future work

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5.1 INTRODUCTION

As previously discussed, there is concern within the ICT industry about the quantity of

ICT graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set [9, 14, 12, 77].

The low quantity and poor quality of ICT graduates has serious implications for the

Australian ICT industry as it limits the growth and advancement of many industry

sectors and is constraining the nation’s ability to compete in the 21st century digital

economy [9]. There are also funding implications for ICT higher education that result in

reduced resources to create courses that attract and retain students and to design

learning experiences that enhance a graduate’s employability [30].

The purpose of this doctoral study was to contribute to the body of knowledge in ICT

curriculum design by addressing the research question:

Thesis Research Question: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to

increase the quantity of ICT graduates professionally competent with the

employability skill set?

To reach a coherent and comprehensive answer to this research question a series of

peer-reviewed papers explored a hierarchy of research questions – shown in Table 1.2

in the introductory chapter.

As discussed in Chapter 2, the first section of the research question hierarchy was

investigating a series of questions related to designing an ICT curriculum informed by

the attainable ICT graduate career outcomes to enhance the employability of a graduate;

a summary of the answers to these research questions is displayed in Table 5.1.1. The

responses to the research question for each paper in Chapter 2 underpin the proposed

answer to address the Chapter 2 research question, RQ1.1.

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Table 5.1.1 Answers to research questions related to using attainable career

outcomes in ICT curriculum design

RQ1.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, informed by the attainable ICT graduate careers, to enhance the employability of a graduate? Answer RQ1.1: An ICT curriculum can be designed that will equip the graduates with the technical and non-technical skills required for the employability skill set by employing the proposed processes to identify the attainable graduate career outcomes via extensive discussions with industry members, and use those career outcomes to identify the relevant technical and non-technical skills by using a skills reference model, such as SFIA [62,63]. Followed by employing the proposed strategies to identify a set of possible subjects by using international curriculum guidelines in combination with the relevant skills [63, 64] and by integrating the skill development across the subjects within the curriculum [64, 70].

RQ1.1.1: What is a process to identify a range of graduate career outcomes that can direct the design of an ICT higher education curriculum to attract new applicants?

Answer RQ1.1.1: A four-stage process for identifying attainable career outcomes was developed that can be used to guide subsequent curricula design decisions. The illustrated process includes practical “how to” guidance along with example constraints, resources and outputs that are necessary to successfully implement the process [62]. By following the stages of this process, career outcomes can be identified that are informed by employer needs and supported by industry-standard skill definitions.

RQ1.1.2: What is a process to identify the essential skills for an ICT graduate for them to gain employment in the ICT industry?

Answer RQ1.1.2: A process was developed to gather information about essential skills whose development should be included in an ICT curriculum. The process involved a series of structured interviews with a range of industry representatives [61]. Face-to-face communication in small groups is recommended, to encourage everyone to participate, with each group being asked the same set of questions [62]. By following this process, essential employability skills, including technical, non-technical and professional skills, can be identified to guide the development of an ICT curriculum.

RQ1.1.3: How can ICT career outcomes relevant to local and national ICT industry and the related SFIA skills directly inform the development of an integrated ICT curriculum?

Answer RQ1.1.3: A strategy was defined that uses the identified career outcomes and related SFIA skills in combination with curricula guidelines, such as the ACM curricula guidelines [7], to develop an ICT curriculum that ensures the graduates develop the relevant skills [63]. The SFIA descriptions of each identified skill are used to identify the subjects for the ICT curriculum using the relevant content frameworks within the curricula guidelines [7, 63]. Each subject should provide knowledge towards the development of the required skills. Integrating the development of a skill across a number of subjects over multiple levels of the course is recommended to relate the skill to a wide-range of ICT topic areas to develop depth of experience and facilitate the transition to professional practice [64, 70].

RQ1.1.4: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, informed by the attainable ICT graduate careers to enhance the employability of a graduate, while adhering to all the constraints imposed by the ICT industry and the tertiary institution?

Answer RQ1.1.4: When developing an ICT curriculum that involves responding to a number of constraints, it is easy to lose sight of the focus on career outcomes for graduates when designing curricula. A strategy was defined for designing an ICT curriculum focused on a set of attainable career outcomes that results in employable competent graduates [64, 67]. The resultant curricula are aligned to curricula guidelines and the course can be structured to appeal to different student populations based on career interests.

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As discussed in Chapter 3, the second section of the research question hierarchy was

investigating a series of questions related to including professional skill development

within an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates; a summary of the

conclusions to these research questions is displayed in Table 5.1.2. The responses to the

research question for each paper in Chapter 3 underpin the proposed answer to address

the Chapter 3 research question, RQ1.2.

Table 5.1.2 Answers to research questions related to including professional skill

development within an ICT curriculum

RQ1.2: How can an ICT curriculum effectively include professional skill development to enhance the employability of the graduates? Answer RQ1.2: An ICT curriculum can be developed that will equip the graduates with the professional skills for the employability skill set to enhance the employability of a graduate by using the methodology outlined in this doctoral study to identify the essential professional skills [61] and integrate their development throughout the subjects within an ICT curriculum to create breadth and depth of experience [70]. RQ1.2.1: How can professional skill development be integrated within an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of a graduate? Answer RQ1.2.1: A seven-step methodology was developed that can assist curriculum designers in the difficult task of integracng professional skill development within an ICT curriculum and create breadth and depth of experience to the extent necessary to achieve professionally competent graduates [70, 67]. The methodology adapted, extended and combined proven approaches of others at the subject level and demonstrated how these can be integrated together across a course curriculum to improve the employability of graduates. RQ1.2.2: How does integrating the development of professional skills across an ICT curriculum impact on a graduate’s competency? Answer RQ1.2.2: A longitudinal study from 2012 to 2018 provided empirical evidence that integracng professional skill development across an encre ICT curriculum significantly improved a graduate’s competency with professional skills [67]. There was no degradation in a graduate’s technical ability after integrating professional skill development and retaining a course duration of three years [67]. RQ1.2.3: What are effective strategies to ensure academic rigor in the assessment process of an industry placement experience included in an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates? Answer RQ1.2.3: Assessment of student performance is challenging in a short-term placement, as student focus during a short placement needs to be on completing tasks for a sponsor. An assessment scheme is outlined that is aligned to learning outcomes that address employability. Industry sponsors and academics both assess a student’s work to ensure academic rigor. The assessment scheme uses reflective practice and both formative and summative assessment by the sponsor to ensure learning outcomes are achieved during the placement to enhance the employability of the graduate. Six important components of a rigorous assessment scheme for a short-term industry placement were identified [130]. RQ1.2.4: What are effective strategies for coordinating team-based industry capstone experiences included in an ICT curriculum to enhance the employability of graduates? Answer RQ1.2.4: Capstone projects provided by external clients facilitate authentic experiential learning opportunities for students that develop professional skills to increase student employability. Four effective strategies for managing the more challenging aspects of coordinating capstone projects were identified: sourcing projects and client management, team formation and management, assessing student learning against generic learning outcomes, and ensuring individual accountability [66].

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Having arrived at answers for the Chapter 2 and 3 research questions, Table 5.1.1 and

Table 5.1.2, enables an answer to be proposed for the first research sub-question:


a graduate?

Answer SRQ1: An ICT curriculum can be designed to enhance the

employability of a graduate by identifying the intended graduate career

outcomes and the related technical and non-technical skills [62,63] and

identifying the essential professional skills [61]. International curriculum

guidelines are then combined and compared with the technical and non-

technical skills to identify possible subjects [63, 64]. Finally, by using the

methodology to integrate the professional skill development throughout the

subjects to ensure breadth and depth of experience [70], an ICT curriculum can

be designed that can result in graduates that are professionally competent with

the employability skill set [67].

This doctoral study provided evidence that these approaches enhanced the

employability of graduates by improving the competency with professional skills

without degrading their proficiency with technical skills [67].

As discussed in Chapter 4, the third section of the research question hierarchy was

investigating a series of questions related to evaluating the impact of strategies to

increase the quantity of graduates; a summary of the conclusions to these research

questions is displayed in Table 5.1.3. The responses to the research question for each

paper in Chapter 4 underpin the proposed answer to address the Chapter 4 research

question, RQ2.1.

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Table 5.1.3 Answers to research questions related to evaluating the impact of

strategies to increase the quantity of graduates

RQ2.1: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed and delivered that amends student misconceptions of the field of ICT, and improves student perceptions, engagement, motivation, and academic success? Answer RQ2.1: An ICT curriculum can be designed, developed and delivered that amends student misconceptions, and improve student perceptions, motivation, engagement, and academic success by employing the strategies along with the practical implementation techniques outlined in this study [66, 69, 129, 130]. In particular, using graduate career outcomes as a basis for curriculum design to amend misconceptions and improve perceptions and motivation; modernising teaching styles, allowing interaction with staff and peers, and introducing work-integrated learning to improve engagement, perceptions and motivation; creating distinct entry points for introductory programming to separate beginner and experienced programmers, introducing a range of topics at first year, and reviewing teaching styles and assessment strategies for introductory programming to improve motivation, engagement and academic success at first year. RQ2.1.1: What is the impact of strategies designed to amend misconcepcons and improve percepcons, mocvacon, engagement and academic success on the quancty of graduates? Answer RQ2.1.1: Data collected over an extended period was used to evaluate the changes to the quancty of graduates [69]. A career-focused approach to curriculum design was shown to increase course commencements. Employing curriculum-wide strategies to amend student misconcepcons and improve student percepcons, mocvacon, engagement, and academic success significantly reduced course aericon. RQ2.1.2: What is the impact of increasing student engagement in the first-year of an ICT course on academic success? Answer RQ2.1.2: A flipped-classroom approach and continuous assessment increases student engagement in first-year, which improved course attrition and academic performance [129]. RQ2.1.3: What ATAR cut-off is useful for predicting the academic success of students in an ICT course? Answer RQ2.1.3: The Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) is a measure of a student's overall pre-tertiary academic achievement. An empirical analysis showed that the ATAR is a significant indicator that a student will complete first-year of an ICT degree and first-year introductory programming. An ATAR cut-off of around 71 would give a 50% probability of passing first-year of an ICT degree, and an ATAR cut-off of around 61 would give a 50% probability of passing introductory programming. RQ2.1.4: What pre-tertiary factors, in combination with a lack academic success, affect when a student is likely to withdraw from an ICT course? Answer RQ2.1.4: Pre-tercary factors, such as gender, ciczenship, age, and entry qualificacon, are useful in deteccng when a student is likely to withdraw from an undergraduate ICT degree [68]. Three key findings are: • Gender and entry qualification can be used to predict the probability that a student will continue

to the second semester, failing female students and TAFE entry students are less likely to continue; • Age and entry qualification can be used to predict the probability that a student will continue to

second-year, failing mature age students and TAFE entry students are less likely to continue; and • Citizenship and entry qualification can be used to predict the probability that a student will

withdraw from the degree, with domestic students and TAFE entry students more likely to withdraw in the latter years of a degree.

Having arrived at answers for the Chapter 4 research question, Table 5.1.3, enables an

answer to be proposed for the second research sub-question:

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SRQ2: How can an ICT curriculum be designed, developed, and delivered to

increase the quantity of graduates?

Answer SRQ2: An ICT curriculum can be designed, developed and delivered

that will have positive returns on the number of ICT graduates by basing the

design on intended career outcomes [64], implementing the strategies identified

to improve the learning experiences for the students within an ICT curriculum

[66, 69, 129, 130], and by using the findings about when to apply appropriate

intervention measures so that they are most likely to be effective [68].

These strategies were based on recommendations from prior research which were often

untested or evaluated over only a few subjects or short trial periods. An empirical

analysis using data collected over a significant time period has evaluated the collective

changes to course commencement and attrition rates and found there was significant

evidence of improvement [69, 129].

Having arrived at answers for the entire research question hierarchy, an answer can be

proposed for the thesis research question:

Thesis Research Question: How can an ICT curriculum be designed to

increase the quantity of ICT graduates professionally competent with the

employability skill set?

Thesis Answer: Curriculum design is a complex process that must be informed

by industry members and considered at both a course and subject level.

Integrating the development of professional skills [61, 70] alongside the

development of the technical and non-technical ICT skills identified based on

intended graduate career outcomes [62, 63, 64] can improve graduate

competency with the employability skill set [67]. Basing the curriculum around

the intended graduate outcomes can attract more students to commence the ICT

course [69], and improving student perceptions of ICT, motivation to study,

engagement with learning and academic success can increase the number of

graduates by reducing course attrition [66, 69, 129, 130].

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As a result of thoroughly exploring this research question, there are three significant

findings that will be of benefit to the ICT industry and ICT higher education.

5.2 SIGNIFICANT FINDINGS

This section will summarise the significant findings in relation to the literature to

identify the significant contributions to ICT curriculum design knowledge and practice.

5.2.1 Finding 1: An ICT curriculum that is aligned with the intended graduate career outcomes and related skill sets can increase course commencements and enhance the employability of graduates

ICT curriculum designers need to link ICT curricula with specific career outcomes and

the related skill sets [29, 117] to result in professionally competent graduates for the

range of intended career outcomes [12, 4, 23, 29]. As part of the School of Computing

and Information Systems case study curriculum renewal process a range of intended

career outcomes were identified after extensive consultation with industry. SFIA was

used to ensure that the ICT curriculum equipped graduates with the necessary

employability skill set (including the technical, non-technical and professional skills)

for those careers. The evaluation of a curriculum designed around career outcomes by

integrating the required skill set development across the curriculum confirmed that the

approach can enhance the employability of graduates, as evidenced by the improved

professional competency of the graduates from the case study curriculum [67, 70].

Curriculum design needed to embrace a career focus to attract a larger and more diverse

range of applicants [29, 117]. The evaluation confirmed that aligning a curriculum with

the intended career outcomes can attract a larger and more diverse range of applicants,

as evidenced by the number of students commencing the games and creative technology

major in the case study curriculum [69].

Ensuring the alignment between curricula and career outcomes, as well as providing

evidence using SFIA that the graduates can attain the required skill sets for the intended

career outcomes is currently a large component of the Australian Computer Society

(ACS) ICT curriculum accreditation process [8]. Unfortunately, there is limited material

available on how to identify career outcomes and related SFIA skill sets and how to use

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that knowledge in the development of ICT curricula [56, 117, 120, 62, 63]. The critical

reflection of the design process for the School of Computing and Information Systems

case study curriculum has addressed this problem with the identification of a process to

design and structure an ICT curriculum that is aligned with the intended graduate career

outcomes and related skill sets that will enhance the employability of graduates [64].

The identified process from this doctoral study allows ICT curriculum designers and

industry representatives to employ a skills reference model, such as that provided by

SFIA, to classify potential ICT career outcomes and the required skill sets for ICT

graduates for the purpose of designing a curriculum. The identified process has resulted

in an augmentation to the ACS recommended curriculum design process [8]. Practical

“how to” guidance has been identified along with example constraints, resources and

outputs. The study then builds on this process with a strategy to design and structure an

ICT curriculum aligned with the intended career outcomes and related skill sets to

enhance the employability of graduates. Practical “how to” guidance is provided for

integrating the development of the identified SFIA skills throughout an ICT curriculum.

In summary, this thesis has made a substantive contribution to the body of knowledge

and practice in ICT curriculum design by identifying:



• A strategy to design and structure an ICT curriculum based on career outcomes

and related skill sets to enhance the employability of graduates.

The outputs from this doctoral study [61, 62, 63, 64] were acknowledged in an ALTA9

good teaching practices study [105] as being a well-documented approach to adopting

SFIA in ICT curriculum design.

9 ALTA is the ACDICT Learning and Teaching Academy. ACDICT is the Australian Council of Deans of ICT.

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5.2.1.1 Implications of this finding

This finding has given rise to a significant implication for ICT curriculum design:

Using a skills reference model, such as that provided by SFIA, enables curriculum

designers and industry representatives to ensure that an ICT curriculum equips

graduates with the required skill sets for the ICT industry.

ICT curricula should not be allowed to stagnate and should be reviewed in consultation

with industry to ensure alignment with current or near-future career outcomes [21, 92]

to attract students to meet the demands of industry. ICT is constantly evolving, and this

creates a challenge for ICT curriculum designers to ensure the ICT fundamentals are

sufficiently covered as well as ensuring the curriculum addresses important emerging

areas of ICT practice [92]. Graduate ICT technical skills should be shaped by new

technologies and market demands [56]. ICT curriculum designers need to remain in-

touch with the changing nature of ICT and seek regular input from the industry to

ensure that an ICT curriculum equips graduates with the necessary skill sets for the

available ICT career outcomes. Using a skills reference model, such as that provided by

SFIA, aids ICT curriculum designers and industry representatives to identify these skill

sets for the evolving career roles within the ICT industry.

5.2.1.2 Future directions for research and practice

The analysis of the impact of career-based pathways was limited due to only having one

career focussed major. While the Games and Creative Technology (GCT) major was

focused on games related career outcomes such as games designer/developer, the

Software Development major was much broader with career outcomes ranging from

software designer/developer to system administrator to business analyst, with a broad

range of subjects available in the final-year of the major to satisfy the knowledge and

skill requirements for those career outcomes. Further research into the impact of career-

based pathways is warranted on the back of the success of the GCT major.

ICT courses need to equip graduates for professional ICT roles that do not currently

exist or are only just emerging [21, 92]. A recent report on Australia’s digital economy

identified that modern technologies, particularly those related to data science and

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artificial intelligence, are causing significant operational changes to Australian business,

industry and employment [40].

Based on the impact of identifying games-related career outcomes in attracting students

and the rapidly evolving industry [40], the career approach was utilised again as part of

the 2018 ICT curriculum review undertaken at the University of Tasmania. After

extensive consultation with the local ICT industry more specialist career outcomes were

identified and additional majors constructed. As part of this review, there was

significant demand for security specialists, software developers and data scientists.

There was enough demand to continue with the game designer/developer role and

introduce a separate business analyst role. The skill sets for these career outcomes were

identified using SFIA and the new majors were offered in 2019. An empirical

evaluation will be conducted as part of the three yearly course review cycle to analyse

the impact on course commencements and attrition. Overall the total student

commencements for 2019 have improved on 2018, but as the previous curriculum

experienced yearly fluctuations it is necessary to do a longer-term study before drawing

any conclusions.

5.2.2 Finding 2: Professional skill development can be integrated within an ICT curriculum without degrading technical skill development to result in professionally competent graduates

The challenge for ICT curriculum designers was how to resolve the tension between

balancing discipline-specific technical content and professional skill development to

result in professionally competent ICT graduates. While it had been hypothesised by

researchers that integrating professional skill development throughout a curriculum

would improve the competency of graduates [3, 22, 25, 38, 39, 42, 46, 50, 51, 52, 59,

71, 97, 99, 101, 27, 45, 47, 57, 106, 112, 124], there was no comprehensive example of

a course-level curriculum approach that had evidence of its effectiveness. The

longitudinal study of the academic outcomes of students that have completed the School

of Computing and Information Systems case study curriculum provided evidence that

integrating professional skill development across an entire ICT curriculum significantly

improves a graduate’s competency with the highly-valued professional skills enhancing

158

the employability of graduates, without having a detrimental impact on their

competency with ICT technical skills [67].

The case study analysis has resulted in a substantive contribution to the body of

knowledge in ICT curriculum design practice with the identification of a methodology

to integrate professional skill development within an ICT curriculum [70], an approach

that has been evaluated as effective in improving graduate competency by the

longitudinal study [67]. The methodology identified as part of this thesis allows ICT

curriculum designers to integrate professional skill development throughout an ICT

curriculum aligning the intended learning outcomes (ILOs) towards the course learning

outcomes (CLOs).

5.2.2.1 Implication of this finding

This opportunity to evaluate an entire ICT curriculum has given rise to a significant

implication for ICT curriculum design:

Integrating professional skill development within an ICT curriculum can result

in graduates professionally competent with the employability skill set.

It has recently been shown that obtaining meaningful employment on graduation is the

greatest concern of students commencing an ICT course [107]. Norton and Cakitaki

[88] indicated deficient undergraduate ICT curricula could be one contributor to the

poor employment outcomes for graduates. While ICT employers are generally satisfied

with the foundational ICT technical skills developed by graduates, proficiency in

professional skills has become the main determining factor when considering a

graduate’s employability [56]. Palmer et al. [92] has recently confirmed that even

though there is significant jobs growth in the ICT industry a third of ICT graduates do

not find employment in the industry, indicating that ICT courses need to equip

graduates for productive work in other industries and professional skills are universally

required in most professions [92]. Graduates who lack proficiency with professional

skills will find it increasingly difficult to find employment in the ICT industry or any

industry. The growing demand for professionally competent ICT graduates warrants the

need for more effective ICT curriculum design to ensure that students are given

opportunities to develop the professional skills that will improve their employment

159

outcomes [56]. ICT curriculum needs to result in professionally competent graduates

that will be able to find employment in their chosen industry on graduation. This

doctoral study has shown that it is possible to integrate the development of professional

skills alongside the development of technical skills throughout a curriculum to improve

a graduate’s overall competency.


A limitation of this doctoral study is that there has not been a comprehensive

investigation of the employment outcomes of graduates from the School of Computing

and Information Systems case study curriculum, nor has there been an evaluation of the

industry impression of the employability of the graduates. National employment

outcome surveys have reported very high employment rates for computing and

information systems graduates, 76% in full-time employment [131]. While anecdotal

evidence is that the graduates are highly prized, and many of them gain meaningful

employment before graduation, a full study of the employment outcomes of UTAS ICT

graduates and industry impressions of employability of graduates needs to be

conducted.

A limitation of the professional skills analysis was that it only considered

communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking. While these skills were

some of the most in-demand professional skills prior to 2014, recent research in this

area has identified a myriad of generic skills that employers would like to see in

graduates. Some of the more prevalent skills identified that are starting to appear in

industry reports and research literature are: computational intelligence, digital literacy,

global citizenship, social responsibility, and emotional intelligence [13, 37]. To ensure

that the graduates are professionally competent with these skills it would be valuable to

apply the methodology to evaluate the level of inclusion and, if gaps are identified,

expand the development of these skills within the new curriculum.

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5.2.3 Finding 3: Ensuring that students are engaged with academic learning activities and motivated to complete the course by the career opportunities can reduce ICT course attrition.

The number of students commencing an ICT course has grown over the last few years,

unfortunately the high attrition rate in ICT courses is still a major concern. While it had

been hypothesised by researchers that improving student perceptions, engagement,

motivation and academic success could reduce course attrition, the challenge for higher

education ICT curriculum designers was how to design, develop and deliver such an

ICT curriculum. Many researchers had identified potential strategies to impact on

perceptions, engagement, motivation and academic success, though evaluation in many

cases was limited to single subjects or were yet to be tested in practice [15, 21, 23, 28,

36, 72, 76, 78, 86, 90, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 104, 105, 109, 117, 120, 123, 126]. The

curriculum renewal at UTAS provided an opportunity to identify curriculum-wide

implementation techniques for several strategies [69].

The empirical evaluation of the School of Computing and Information Systems case

study curriculum examined the academic outcomes of students over an extended period.

This doctoral study confirmed that a career-focussed approach to ICT curriculum design

can have a positive impact on course attrition by improving the student perceptions and

motivation to finish, as evidenced by the significant improvement in retention of

domestic students [69]. A recent study by Morgan et al. [86] found staff

overwhelmingly look towards changing behavioural aspects (such as enforcing

attendance and participation) to improve student engagement, whereas this doctoral

study confirmed that student engagement could be influenced by changing affective

aspects of engagement (such as increasing interaction with peers) [69]. Creating distinct

entry points for students with and without programming experience can have a positive

impact on academic success [69]. Improving student perceptions, engagement,

motivation and academic success across a curriculum can have a positive impact on

course attrition [69].

This thesis has made a substantive contribution to the body of knowledge in ICT

curriculum design practice by identifying effective strategies with implementation

techniques to increase ICT course commencements and reduce ICT course attrition to

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increase the quantity of graduates professionally competent with the employability skill

set. This study has discussed six implementation techniques:

• Utilising career outcomes to identify distinct pathways through a curriculum, to

increase motivation and engagement;

• Modernising teaching styles to create a more student-centered learning

experience to increase engagement;

• Introducing greater interaction with peers to enable active learning to increase

engagement;

• Identifying distinct entry points for introductory programming for beginners and

experienced programmers to improve academic success and engagement;

• Improving academic success at first-year, by covering distinct ICT topics and

varying teaching styles to increase motivation and engagement; and

• Incorporating industry interaction via work-integrated learning (such as

placements, capstone projects) to increase motivation.

The results of this doctoral study are valuable to ICT curriculum designers who require

effective implementation techniques for strategies that can be applied curriculum-wide

that have been shown to have a positive impact on increasing the quantity of graduates.

5.2.3.1 Implications of this finding

This opportunity to evaluate the case study ICT curriculum has given rise to two

implications for ICT higher education:

1. To increase the supply of ICT graduates, applications should be sought from a

diverse range of students because a lack of prior learning in ICT does not

indicate that a student will fail introductory programming, and a relatively low

Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) of 62 indicates that a student has a

50% possibility of passing their first semester including introductory

programming; and

2. Greater support mechanisms intentionally provided to sectors of the student

population that commence an ICT course could improve academic success and

reduce course attrition.

162

Siegal et al. [107] found that fear of failure was the second highest concern of students

entering ICT higher education. Unfortunately for many students this fear proves a

reality. The comprehensive analysis of the academic outcomes of numerous cohorts of

students, focusing on the impact on different student demographics, has implications for

increasing course commencements and reducing course attrition.

To increase course commencements, this doctoral study has found that applications

should be sought from a diverse range of students, not just those who have previously

studied ICT nor those who have previously achieved high results.

The findings regarding the timing of course withdrawal are consistent with previous

studies that have found the first-year of studies is where the largest course attrition

occurs [4, 109, 58, 93, 103], though there are some demographics that make the

decision very early in that year, while others do persist longer even after failure. Student

advisors can use this information to apply appropriate intervention measures at times

when they are most likely to be effective at reducing course attrition. For example,

female, international and Technical and Further Education (TAFE) students should be

provided academic assistance intervention measures (such as extra tutorials) during

their first semester (before failure), particularly with introductory programming.


This doctoral study was limited in that it only considered the academic outcomes of

students and not the employment outcomes. Given the national shortage of skilled ICT

workers, ICT students anecdotally find employment prior to graduation and this could

be significantly impacting on retention rates and time taken to complete [68, 65]. It

would be valuable to investigate the employment outcomes of not only graduates, but

the students that leave before graduation.

This doctoral study was focused on the academic outcomes of students enrolled in the

case study curriculum. It would be interesting to apply the empirical analysis of pre-

tertiary factors to other institutions to explore whether the issues are discipline or

regionally based.

163

To continue this research on course attrition and the impact of intervention measures,

the next phase of the study is to apply the intervention measures at the identified

optimal times and analyse the impact on course attrition.

5.2.4 Summary of the findings, limitations and direction for future research

This study had three significant findings in relation to the literature that together made a

significant contribution to ICT curriculum design knowledge and practice:

1. An ICT curriculum that is aligned with the intended graduate career outcomes

and related skill sets can increase course commencements and enhance the

employability of graduates

2. Professional skill development can be integrated within an ICT curriculum

without degrading technical skill development to result in professionally

competent graduates

3. Ensuring that students are engaged with academic learning activities and

motivated to complete the course by the career opportunities can reduce ICT

course attrition.

While the analysis of the impact of career-based pathways on attracting students was

limited, as part of the 2018 ICT curriculum review the career approach was utilised

again and three new career focussed majors were implemented in 2019. To continue the

research on course attrition the intervention measures will be applied at the identified

optimal times for the commencing students. As an extension to this study an empirical

evaluation will be conducted to analyse the impact of the new majors and the

intervention measures on course commencements and course attrition.

A limitation of this study was that there has not been an analysis of the employment

outcomes of graduates, nor has there been an evaluation of the industry reaction to the

employability of the graduates from the case study curriculum. A further study of the

employment outcomes of UTAS ICT graduates and industry impressions of

employability of graduates will be conducted.

164

5.3 CONCLUSION

This doctoral study aimed to address the core challenge for ICT higher education: How

can an ICT curriculum be designed to increase the quantity of ICT graduates

professionally competent with the employability skill set? Based on an evidence-based

empirical evaluation of an ICT curriculum, it can be concluded that by integrating the

development of professional skills alongside the development of technical and non-

technical ICT skills graduate competency with the employability skill set can be

improved. The results of the empirical evaluation also indicate that basing a curriculum

around the intended graduate outcomes has the potential to attract more students to

commence an ICT course, and that improving student perceptions of ICT, motivation to

study, engagement with learning, and academic success has the potential to increase the

number of graduates by reducing course attrition. This thesis has made a substantive

contribution to the body of knowledge in ICT curriculum design practice by identifying:



• A methodology to effectively include professional skill development throughout


• Effective strategies with implementation techniques to increase ICT course



165

CHAPTER 6

Appendices

166

6.1 APPENDIX A

These papers were not first-authored by this thesis author and were written to present

the research related to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) in Chapter

2 of this thesis to an international audience using a different perspective.

6.1.1 Designing the Modern ICT Curriculum: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract: In the current University economic environment, ICT Schools are under

pressure to reduce the scope of their offerings and to simultaneously increase research

output. The UTAS School of Computing and Information Systems was recently

administratively reviewed and it was recommended to replace the current undergraduate

degrees, a Bachelor of Computing and a Bachelor of Information Systems, with a single

degree and that the number of undergraduate units be reduced from fifty to thirty. This

paper describes a process developed to meet these requirements through stakeholder-led

curriculum development efforts that clearly identifies career roles and required skills

appropriate for a modern ICT university degree.

Kristy de Salas, Ian Lewis, Julian Dermoudy, Nicole Herbert, Leonie Ellis, Matthew Springer and Winyu Chinthammit. 2013. Designing the modern ICT curriculum: Opportunities and challenges. Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2013), 15-18 December 2013, Milan, Italy, pp. 1- 12. (2013)


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6.1.2 Development of ICT Curricula through Graduate Career Outcomes and Required Skills

Abstract: Career outcomes are widely used by Universities to market their programs

but there is scant evidence that they are attainable by graduates or if they inform

curriculum design. This paper reports on a process for designing a University ICT

curriculum that is directly informed by the career outcomes relevant to both local and

national ICT industry. Outputs from this process are a set of classified attainable

graduate career outcomes and a set of graduate skills that are the basis for the further

stages of the curriculum development.

Ian Lewis, Kristy de Salas, Nicole Herbert, Winyu Chinthammit, Julian Dermoudy, Leonie Ellis, and Matthew Springer. 2013. Development of ICT curricula through graduate career outcomes and required skills. Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering, 22-25 July 2013, Las Vegas, USA, pp. 1-7. ISBN 1-60132-235-6 (2013)


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6.2 APPENDIX B

These papers were first authored by the thesis author before this doctoral study

commenced, and provide details of some of the initial research in collaborative capstone

project experiences that form the basis for creating engaging and motivating learning

experiences and incorporating professional skill development within an ICT curriculum.

Note: Clark was a maiden name of the thesis author.

6.2.1 Quantitative peer assessment: can students be objective?

Abstract: Team work can have a positive impact on student learning and commitment,

but it is challenging to determine a method of assessment that does not require lecturers

to involve themselves intimately with each team. Team members are often the best

source of meaningful data, and as a result, lecturers are including self and peer

assessment. One method of peer assessment is to have team members quantify their

own contribution and that of team members. Concerns have been raised in the literature

about distribution patterns with this method of peer assessment. An online peer

assessment system has been capturing data from a capstone project course for three

years with over 24 teams and 100 students each year. This paper analyses the following

questions: do students take the easy option of equal distribution to avoid conflict, are

students honest about their own contribution, are females treated fairly and are

international students unfairly discriminated against.

Nicole Herbert. 2007. Quantitative Peer Assessment: Can students be objective. Proceedings of the Ninth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2007), 30 Jan - 2 Feb 2007, Ballarat, Victoria, pp. 63-71. ISBN 1-920-68247-3 (2007)


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6.2.2 Evaluating student teams in unique industry projects

Abstract: Real industry projects and teamwork can have a great impact on student

learning and commitment, but provision of these features also produces significant

challenges for academic assessment. This paper describes an approach to evaluate teams

and individuals who develop unique industry projects. The paper documents several

years of experimentation with different approaches, including both failures and

refinements to successful approaches. The final approach adopted allows application of

the same criteria to all students even though they are working on different projects. It

structures individual accountability to ensure all members of a team contribute.

Assessment data is collected from multiple assessors linking them to the learning

outcomes and providing the students with an understanding of personal strengths and

weaknesses.

Nicole Clark. 2005. Evaluating student teams developing unique industry projects. Proceedings of the Seventh Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2005), January 2005, Newcastle, Australia, pp. 21-29. ISBN 1-920682-24-4 (2005)


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6.2.3 Self and Peer Assessment in software engineering projects

Abstract: Team software engineering projects can enhance student learning and

commitment, but it is challenging to determine a method of assessment that assesses the

intended learning outcomes; particularly when assessing teamwork and an individual's

contribution to the team's work. The students themselves are often the best source of

meaningful data, and self and peer assessment is a valuable part of the whole

assessment scheme. To ensure the integrity of the final grade it is necessary to use a

variety of tools and to check the correlation between data from different sources. To

increase the learning opportunities, it is useful to repeat some assessment tasks during

the course. However, this can be time-consuming for the lecturer to collate and analyse,

and providing timely feedback to the students is difficult. Web-based peer assessment

offers an opportunity to provide quality, timely feedback in a way that is manageable by

the lecturer.

Nicole Clark, Pamela Davies, and Rebecca Skeers. 2005. Self and Peer Assessment in Software Engineering Projects. Proceedings of the Seventh Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2005), January 2005, Newcastle, Australia, pp. 91-100. ISBN 1-920682-24-4 (2005)


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6.2.4 Peer testing in Software Engineering Projects

Abstract: For the last six years, students in the Software Engineering Project course at

the University of Tasmania have undertaken projects in teams of four or five members.

Since 1998 peer testing sessions have been conducted in two different formats: paired

peer code reviews and group peer inspections. The critique that the testers perform can

help the development team to identify problems before assessment hence increasing the

quality of the work submitted. The peer testing sessions also provide many different,

but valuable, benefits such as serving as milestones, increasing learning, and increasing

collaboration between students in different teams.

Nicole Clark. 2004. Peer Testing in Software Engineering Projects. Computing Education 2004 Sixth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE 2004) Australian Computer Science Communications, January 2004, Dunedin, New Zealand, pp. 41-48. ISBN 1-920682-12-0 (2004)


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CHAPTER 7

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