Evaluating professional skills and employment status of baccalaureate's alumni in Information Technology Engineering

The present study was conducted aiming to investigate professional skills and employment status of IT engineering graduates. This research was an applied study and administered through mixed exploratory method. Data were collected via interview and researcher-made questionnaire. The statistical population included all faculty members in departments of IT engineering, computers and IT engineering baccalaureate alumni in Isfahan University. The validity of interview questions and the reliability of interview texts were reviewed and confirmed by 4 experts. The reliability of the questionnaires was confirmed by 7 experts and its coefficient was calculated 0.82 through Cronbach alpha method. The findings from the interviews and questionnaires were analyzed through categorization, and One- sample t-test, One- way ANOVA and Multiple Regression, respectively. The results showed that the faculty members viewed the expected professional skills for IT students are the skill of integrating technical and practical knowledge in action, communicating two domains, high analysis and research power, and the skills in team working and group interactions. Moreover, the alumni evaluated the components under study lower than appropriate and there should be some reviews and reforms in this regard. There was no difference between the people's demographic factors and their views toward the components of professional skills and employment status; however, there was a significant difference in people's views concerning employment status. There was a significant difference regarding the components of tendency to continue education. In addition, professional skills and the tendency to continue education were effective in predicting employment status.