A Software Development Process for Freshman Undergraduate Students

Overview & Synopsis

This conceptual paper presents work which is part of an ongoing research project into the design of a software development process aimed at freshman, undergraduate computing students. The process of how to plan and develop a solution is a topic that is addressed very lightly in many freshman, undergraduate courses which can leave novices open to developing habit-forming, maladaptive cognitive practices. The conceptual software development process described in this paper has a learning process at its core which centres on declarative knowledge (in the form of threshold concepts) and procedural knowledge (in the form of computational thinking skills) scaffolding freshman software development from initial planning through to final solution. The process - known as Computational Analysis and Design Engineered Thinking (CADET) - aims to support the structured development of both software and student self-efficacy.