Work in Progress: Importance of Dispositions on the Job: Survey of Computing Professionals

This work-in-progress research paper shares the findings of a survey of computing professionals regarding the importance of various dispositions on the job. Survey findings from recent graduates also include their perception of how well each disposition was covered in their undergraduate courses. Dispositions are beliefs, attitudes, or values, such as being ethical, being persistent, and valuing collaboration. Dispositions impact whether individuals will apply their knowledge and skills appropriately in any given situation. There is increasing recognition of the importance of dispositions in the realm of computing education, as evidenced by recent computing curricular guidelines (e.g., IT2017 and CC2020). However, few existing studies of professionals explicitly discriminate between dispositions and other types of competencies (e.g., cross-disciplinary or “soft” skills). Furthermore, little research has been focused on the degree to which professionals believe that dispositions have been adequately covered by computing education in the United States. This study will present the findings of a survey of computing professionals, utilizing items based on on a list of 30 dispositions derived from earlier studies. It will present practitioners' perceptions of the importance of each of the 30 dispositions and will also present the satisfaction recent graduates (who have graduated with an undergraduate degree within the last 5 years) have with the coverage of these dispositions during their undergraduate experience. Findings of this paper may reveal not only of the importance of dispositions in general, but which dispositions are most important, and which are most or least covered in current educational programs. The research team recommends that higher education administrators, curriculum designers and individual faculty members use the data-informed disposition list, in conjunction with college/university and departmental vision and values, to select a small number of dispositions to purposefully incorporate across their program. Findings may also be of interest to curricular guideline committees and scholars interested in dispositions, competency-based education, character education, or virtue ethics.