Search results

Saudi universities have incorporated capstone projects in the final year of an undergraduate study. Although universities are following recommendations of the National Commission for National Commission for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) and Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), no detailed guidelines for management and assessment of capstone projects are provided by these accreditation bodies. Variation in the management and assessment practices of capstone project courses and analysis of the students' capabilities to align with industry demands, to realize Vision 2030, is challenging. This study investigates the current practices for structure definition, management and assessment criteria used for capstone project courses at undergraduate level for information technology (IT) programs at Saudi universities.

A web-based questionnaire is administered using a web service commonly used for questionnaires and polls to investigate the structure, management and assessment of capstone projects at the undergraduate level offering software engineering, computer science and information technology (SECSIT) programs. In total, 42 faculty members (with range of experience of managing/advising capstone projects from 1 to more than 10 years) from 22 Saudi universities (out of more than 30 universities offering SECSIT undergraduate programs) participated in the study.

The authors have identified that Saudi universities are facing challenges in the utilized process model, the distribution of work and marks, the knowledge sharing approach and the assessment scheme. To cope with these challenges, the authors recommend the use of an incremental development process, the utilization of a project-driven approach, the development of a national level digital archive and the implementation of homogeneous assessment scheme.

To contribute to the national growth and to fulfill the market demand, universities are recommended to align the capstone project courses with latest technology trends. Universities must collaborate with the industry and update the structure and requirements of capstone project courses accordingly. This will further facilitate to bridge the gap between industry and academia and will develop a win–win scenario for all the stakeholders.

Although universities are committed to increase innovative capacities of their students for enabling them to contribute to economic and social growth, it is still hard to know the knowledge creation and sharing at national level. Variations in the management and assessment practices for capstone projects further intensify this challenge. Hence, there is a need of smart assessment and management of software capstone projects being developed in Saudi universities. Incorporating latest technologies, such unified management can facilitate discovering the trends and patterns related to the domain and complexity.

Many youths are out-of-school with few having the basic sustainable skills to earn a living. Some of the engaged ones have interpersonal relationship and other problems that can sustain the successes of their business. Therefore, this study is set to investigate the relationship between affective behaviour, emotional intelligence and success of out-of-school youths in cell phone maintenance enterprise.

Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. Of the total, 350 out-of-school youths who are engaged in cell phone maintenance enterprise in computer village Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria, were used as a sample, but 292 samples with completely filled research instrument were used for the study. Data collected were validated through the principal component analysis and the hypothesis tested through the confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS and SPSS.

The result of the study showed that affective behaviour and social skills do not necessarily predict but self-motivation predicts the career success of out-of-school youths in cell phone maintenance enterprise. Self-awareness, emotional regulation, social awareness and emotional receptivity significantly influence affective behaviour towards success in their chosen career.

This study enhances the cell phone maintenance association or group to adopt the participation of on-the-job training of their members to help them build good relationship and self-esteem. The training will improve their emotional intelligence and further enhance the creation of a formidable emotional intelligent workplace team.

The study affirms that the constructs of emotional intelligence are predictors of career success among out-of-school cell phone maintenance. It boosts their moral and psychological behaviours towards building good customer relationship which culminates into success in their career area. This study also motivates the out-of-school youths that success is multifaceted that involves building adequate personal and social relationship within the circle of their co-maintenance personnel and customers.

This study showed that success in any chosen career involves adequate training, inter- and intra-personal relationship and building adequate emotional intelligence to overcome the varying challenges that may be encountered. Also it indicated that personal development in a chosen career is essential and career successes can be built around personal goal orientation rather than building it in circle of people around. The study does not totally neglect social relationship because no man can live and succeed in isolation.