The main intent of the research is to learn more about the ways in which PhD doctorants in the Software Engineering eld can prepare themselves for careers in modern exacting and fast changing job market. Results of rst diagnostic stage of the study are presented based on materials of a simple quantitative survey of a group of PhD-students, a signi cant part of which is developing in the eld of parallel, distributed and cloud computing. This group is currently enrolled in the international program at the Erasmus+ project of eleven universities from ve European countries, Russia and Jordan. Processing and statistical analysis results of the survey allowed to identify groups of the most signi cant professional skills for future work, to nd out the PhD-students level of knowledge and mastering these skills and to evaluate the students intention to obtain them. Conclusions and recommendations presented on the base of comparison the list of skills ranked by PhD students with a list of skills required by employers in the areas close to the Software Engineering.
The aim of this research is to explore the degree to which students realize that
international doctoral programs are providing them skills that will be on demand
on the current job market. At the rst stage of this study a written survey was
conducted of a group of PhD students of eleven universities currently involved
in the doctoral programs in Software Engineering (SWE) at the international
project \Joint Programs and Framework for Doctoral Education in Software
Engineering" (PWs@PhD project). The overall aim of this project in the
European Union Erasmus+ Program \Capacity Building in Higher Education" is to
support the development, modernization, and internalization of Software
Engineering higher education according to the SWEBOK [
The current postgraduate education system in many countries is still based on
an XIX century discipleship model, where elder researchers train younger ones in
the craft of research. Although the scienti c corporation has changed cardinally
since then, the PhD education system mostly has not [
In spite of these economic realities, university doctoral programs largely
continue to view PhD training as a means of reproducing the status quo.
Postgraduate study, in an attempt to produce experts, has traditionally recommended
doctoral students to dive deeply into a narrow area of specialization over the course
of their research [
The situation in Russia is quite di erent from overproduction of PhD's in
Western countries. The reform of higher education in Russia implemented in
accordance with the Bologna system had almost no impact on the third level of the
Bachelor-Master-Doctorate system. Domestic post-graduate school { especially
speaking about the applied disciplines { is considerably less e ective than the
doctoral training institution of PhD [
The mismatch between the professional skills which contemporary employers
expect, and the actual skills with which many doctoral-level programs are
equipping PhD students, need to be better investigated and understood. Quantitative
data collected by many investigators in previous studies document the existing
inconsistencies between the disciplinary skills acquired during doctoral
education and the professional skills of demand by the contemporary employers; see
for example [6{8], [
In this rst diagnostic stage of the study, we use approach involving a simple quantitative survey of a group of PhD students, a signi cant part of which is developing in the eld of parallel, distributed and cloud computing, who are currently enrolled in SWE-related international programs at the PWs@PhD project of eleven universities from ve European countries, Russia and Jordan. The purpose of the quantitative survey is to gather data from participants as well as evaluate their interest to various aspects of professional development.
As the initial stage of the search PhD students themselves under supervision
of researches created and presented the list of professional skills outside of their
major area of study which will be necessary for them after their complete PhD
(Appendix A). The 27-questions survey was drawn up based on the obtained
skills list and PhD Focus Group Participant Information Survey for American
doctorants from the paper [
Survey items ask participants to rank the types of jobs they will seek after completing their degrees and how prepared they feel for their respective careers. The survey also asks doctorants to describe their pro ciency in professional skills and the likelihood they would participate in additional training in those same skills if it were provided.
Analysis of the quantitative survey results consist of comparing the mean
scores, standard deviations and correlation of the responses, also the cluster
analysis of the responses using the classic method of Ward. Statistical signi cance
of di erences when comparing the responses of various groups of respondents
performed using the standard Mann-Whitney U-test [
The main themes that discovered during the analysis of the received data are presented here in an e ort to address the research questions posed by this study. 3.1
On the basis of an independent group work 22 PhD students of 11 European
universities in the framework of participation in the PWs@PhD project compiled
a list of the skills they need for further work, but are not directly related to their
course of study and research on SWE specialties (Appendix A). As a result
of association without repetitions this list with the similar list for 44 students
enrolled in STEM-related PhD programs at a large American university [
On the basis of the survey of participants PWs@PhD project, conducted with the help of the developed questionnaire, the skills collected were ranked on the importance in future and on the degree of the present mastering.
Processing and statistical analysis of the results of a survey of PhD-students opinions allowed to identify groups of the most signi cant skills, to nd out the students level of knowledge and mastering these skills and to evaluate the students intention to obtain them.
Fig. 1 shows a diagram that allows to compare the mean values of points for skills that PhD-students possess, and skills they want to acquire in the course of training in the framework of the international PWs@PhD project. 3.2
It is a common interest to compare the list of skills ranked by students with
a list of skills required by employers in the areas close to the SWE. The table
\The Most in Demand Skills in 15 Business functions" from [
The most suitable for our purposes skills group is highlighted by the
authors of the report [
Surprising ndings for the current study are that skills of this Cluster have
the highest scores in students evaluation of desired skills, as one can directly
see from the Fig. 1: Research Methods { 7.5 points, Managing Project { 8.2
points, Negotiation { 7.4 points, and Data Analysis { 8.0 points. In general,
the correlation between the ranked sets of skills required by employers [
Further, cluster analysis of the responses to the survey question number 16 (see Appendix B) allowed to distinguish two groups, which can be called \advanced" and \ordinary" students. The group of \ordinary" students appreciated their existing skills by an average of 3.65 points, a group of \advanced" { by 6.29 points, i.e. almost twice as much. Fig. 2 is a diagram shows the mean values of marks on several skills from the students list for the two groups described above.
The same cluster analysis of the responses to question 17 of the skills that the PhD-students would like to receive during the international training program (see Appendix B) has revealed three clusters: 1. students in good standing, who interested in all skills, 2. self-motivated students, who interested only in several types of skills, 3. students in bad standing, who do not interested in the most skills.
Averages of mean values of marks for all skills are equal to for the rst group { 8.37, for the second { 5.66, for the third { 2.46. Fig. 3 is a diagram showing the average student marks a xed on several skills from the list for three clusters described. This result on the one hand re ects the di erential structure of any learning group, on the other hand shows the di erence between the perfectionists who want to have excellent grades in all subjects, and experts, which are clearly much focus in the direction of their work and the problem area of their research.
In addition, we compared the marks exhibited by doctorants from Russia and from other countries. The result is that for each skill di erence the responses between Russian and foreign students are statistically not signi cant either as a result of the responses to question 16, nor on the results of the responses to question 17. Moreover, a set of skills that students possess, and a set of skills that they would like to acquire, is the same for all countries. 4
According to the results of the study, we formulate the following conclusions.
1. The Lists of professional skills outside of the major STEM area of PhD
studies which will be necessary for further work are signi cantly di erent for
European doctorants (Appendix A), American doctorants [
Further examination of these themes seeks to develop a better understanding of student perceptions about which skills will be most useful in their future careers, and which factors a ect their learning and career preparation behaviors and in uence the kinds of knowledge and skills they actively seek to acquire during international schools of the PWs@PhD project.
The research is partially supported by the European Union Erasmus+ Program Capacity Building in Higher Education; Problem-based Case Studies and Learning in Software Engineering Program of the Aalborg University; the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), grant No. 16-06-00221.
The authors thank Professor Alain Abran of University du Quebec for the idea of the study; professor Lene Tolstrup Sorensen of Aalborg University for the opportunity to conduct group work and student survey at the time of her lectures in the framework of PWs@PhD project; Dr. Antti Knutas of Lappeenranta University of Technology for the professional collection and presentation skills list; PhD-students Daria Belykh and Andrey Saltan of St. Petersburg State University for the study presentation at PWs@PhD project; Professor Andrey Sozykin of Ural Federal University for useful discussions and interest in the work; Professor Vladimir Halin of St. Petersburg State University for continued support and understanding. List of professional skills outside of the major Software Engineering area of PhD studies which will be necessary for further work. B