A Model for Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Undergraduate Curriculum in Teaching Software Code Quality

Abstract: Developers build an entire software by writing quality code, the failure of which can risk organizational reputation, financial wellbeing, and even the lives and security of people. The ability to develop high quality code is therefore a key learning goal of foundational undergraduate computing programmes. However, how effective these undergraduate computing curriculums are in teaching software code quality is a matter of concern as this leads to raising the knowledge of future software developers. Right now, there is a lack of models to evaluate this effectiveness of undergraduate curriculum in providing the knowledge of software code quality to students.In this thesis, we suggest a model for evaluating the effectiveness of undergraduate curriculum in teaching software code quality, which we call ScQUc (Software Code Quality in Undergraduate Curriculum). Our goal is to raise the knowledge and awareness of teaching software code quality in education and make the undergraduate computing curriculum more software code quality centric.Due to the fact that there is a lack of models for evaluating the effectiveness of undergraduate curriculum in teaching software code quality, we had no closely related work to base our research on. We had to rely on other works related to code quality in programming courses that were indirectly connected to our research field. Hence, we dare infer that the ScQUc model was created from scratch.The research method used was qualitative and followed the frame of design science. Data collection was conducted via literature study and via interviews with two experts in the field. The interviewees were selected with the convenience sampling method enhanced with a predefined selection criterion. Data evaluation, on the other hand, was conducted using an evaluation model. The evaluation model included the following evaluation criteria: (1) interviewee credibility, (2) correctness, (3) flexibility, (4) usefulness and (5) experience. One round of interview was conducted with each of the interviewees which resulted in the improvement of the ScQUc model.The ScQUc model consists of a checklist of code quality characteristics and a sequence of activities to be conducted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of an undergraduate curriculum in teaching software code quality. The results of the evaluation of the ScQUc model inferred that the ScQUc model was correct and useful for the academia. Hence, we believe that the ScQUc model is a valid solution for evaluating the effectiveness of undergraduate curriculum in teaching software code quality. Still, however, the ScQUc model needs further evaluation and extension in form of specifications aiding deeper understanding of code quality, how to teach code quality, and to what extent to teach code quality.