Full-stack Development and Soft Skills: An Agile-based Learning Framework

Abstract

Full-stack software development skills are highly sought after by the tech industry. These skills are often obtained through hands-on experience in addition to learning the fundamental knowledge. Therefore, in order to provide effective training to software engineering students, it is important that educational institutions invest in innovative and practical training strategies. constructivist teaching and learning activities such as Project-based learning (PBL) can serve as effective strategies to provide hands-on and practical learning experiences for software engineering students. However, given the complexities of software development life-cycle, it would be highly beneficial to tailor a PBL approach that supports student learning and provides effective training. This research proposes an agile-based learning framework to facilitate learning of full-stack software development and the soft-skills that complement it. This framework has been applied to a software development and architecture course at the University of Calgary in fall 2021. The student perception of the delivery of the course and their performance is presented through survey, and the analysis of their Git repositories.