Improving soft skills based on students’ traces in problem-based learning environments

ABSTRACT

To assume the productivity of students in the workplace, the higher educational institutions would be faced by a challenging reality that of how to keep focus on technicalities while improving the set of soft skills. Therefore, the main aim of this research is improving students’ soft skills and thus their cognitive skills in parallel, to prepare them professionally, where they are put in a problem-based learning environment that is based on developing a software project. In this humble study, students undergo an experimental process where they are asked to develop a software project. The latter is defined by a teacher-set deadline period in which students’ performed actions would be recorded to be used in the assessment process. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed system and the proposed approach for improving the soft skills, the prospective experiment was conducted at the level of a higher education institution. Over and above, the obtained results were highly satisfying and very encouraging. They also showed that the cognitive profiles and soft skills of most students were improved.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem based learning
• project
• traces
• software engineering
• soft skills

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Houda Tadjer

Houda Tadjer is currently working as an Assistant Teacher of Computing at the Computer Science Department of Guelma University, Algeria and she is a researcher at the LabSTIC laboratory. She holds an MS in Computer Science from Annaba University. She is preparing her PhD at Annaba University. Her research fields include e-learning, Problem Based Learning, web technologies and education.

Yacine Lafifi

Yacine Lafifi is currently working as a Full Professor at the Computer Science Department of Guelma University, Algeria. He works in e-learning research field since 1997. He received his PhD in computer science from the University of Annaba (Algeria) in 2007. He has several published papers in conferences and journals. Furthermore, he is an editorial board member of many international journals. Currently, he works on e-tutoring environments, e-Learning, CSCL, recommender systems, MOOC and human tutoring systems.

Hassina Seridi-Bouchelaghem

Hassina Seridi-Bouchelaghem is a Full Professor at the Computer Science Department of Badji Mokhtar-Annaba University, Algeria and is affiliated with LABGED Laboratory. She has published several papers in international conferences and journals. Her research interests include information systems, recommender systems, e-learning, semantic web, social web, data mining and artificial intelligence.

Sevinç Gülseçen

Sevinç Gülseçen is currently working as a Full Professor at the Informatics Department of Istanbul University, Turkey. She works in information and communication technology research field since 1984. She received her PhD in MIS from the Istanbul University in 1993. She has several published papers in conferences and journals. Furthermore, she is the chief editor of the journal ActaINFOLOGICA and an editorial board member of some international journals. Currently, she works on knowledge management, AI, constructivist learning, e-Learning, HCI and Social informatics.