Assessing Student Programming Skills and Area of Interests in the Final Year Project

Abstract

Final Year Project (FYP) is an essential ingredient of an undergraduate programme as it creates a platform for students to strengthen their problem-solving and research skills. However, in the case of Information Technology (IT) programme, students are lack of knowledge in choosing the most suitable area of interest that complements their programming skills. Also, the issues arise, such as: “How to select the most suitable area of interest for the final project?” and “Do programming skills offer benefits in choosing the area of interest for the final project?”. This paper proposes a method to assess the meaningful relationship between a student programming skill and the area of interest for the final year project with the aided of a user study by capturing students’ perception on these two qualities in selecting their final year project. The obtained correlation between the two qualities, which is the key contribution of the paper, creates a platform for further research into developing a recommendation system that can assist final year projects students in selecting the most suitable research area for their FYP.