STEM Analysis of Mobile Software Development Industry

This essay shows the different legal basis, literatures, and studies that are connected and will be helpful for the study about Development and Assessment of Android-Based Career Guide Application for Grade 10 SCPS Students. The legal basis is about the memorandums that the Department of Education implement when it comes to career guidance. For the related literature it will talk about the effect of mobile application to education, development of a mobile application and factors in career choices. Lastly, the related studies, will show studies connected to this research.

Review of Related Legal Basis

Department of Education is a sector of the Philippine Government that is concerned or responsible in the basic education of the students in the country. Its also their responsibility in creating memorandums and programs that will benefit the students, especially in Career Guidance. The government gave a memorandum to DepEd about the Dissemination of the Republic Act No. 11206 which is entitled 'An Act of Establishing a Career Guidance and Counseling Program for All Secondary Schools and Appropriating Funds Therefor.

The government knows the role of the youth and how they help for the social progress of the country. According to Section 2 Republic Act No. 11206, the state ensures the total development of the youth by promoting relevant education. This act stated different objectives. First, there should be a counseling program in all public and private secondary schools for students nationwide that will help and guide them in what to pursue in college. Second, the students should have the ability to have appropriate career decisions. Lastly, to ensure the college graduates to meet the requirements of the government, industry and economy. This republic act also mentioned the Creation of National Secondary School Career Guidance and Program (CGCP) that will be administered by DepEd. There should be a CGCP center in all secondary schools that will be headed by the school administrator and a trained guidance counselor. National Career Assesment Exam (NCAE) is should be conducted every year.

The Philippine Educational System implemented the k to 12 program. According to Department of Education [DepEd] (2013), the goal of this program is to help the high school students to be prepared for higher education, middle level skills development, employment and entrepreneurship in association with the Career Guidance Advocacy Program-Working Group [CGAP-WG]. Based on DepEd order no. 25 series of 2013 or “Guidelines on the Conduct of Career Guidance Week for High School Students Effective School Year (S.Y.) 2013-2014”. The Career Guidance Week celebration is a prevention from wasting too much resources that involves time from being spent in producing in the tertiary level including in technical vocational education who could not reach the qualification standards in the labour market. Mismatch between 1) interest/ aptitude and career; 2) career and labor demand; 3) education/ training and career results from uninformed and misguided students.

At the end of the program, the students shall have acquired information about discovering one’s strengths and developing awareness, qualification standards for all types of career jobs and making informed decisions on a career choice. Developed awareness and appreciation of the available jobs/choices in the labor market and their needs, interests, aptitudes and inclinations. Experienced careers they aiming at, matching their interest with the possible career in a given array of choices, identifying a career fitted to one’s interest.

This legal basis Dissemination of Republic Act No. 11206 and Guidelines on the Conduct of Career Guidance Week for High School Students effective school year [S.Y.] 2013-2014 is relevant to the study for it talks about how important the youth and how the government will be able to help them in choosing their career. The legal basis also stated different programs and it also has an objectives that says that all secondary schools should have career guidance and counselling program for the students. Same with the goal of the study, in order to help the students in career choice through the Android-Based Career Guide Application.

Review of Related Literature

Impact of Mobile Application

Mobile Application had affected many aspects of life including the impact of mobile Application to Learning, Social Media, Navigation and Security (Vora 2017). Students can now know anything with just a click of a button in their smartphones nowadays the students just have to know what they need to know and search for it. As regards with the Impact of Mobile Applications to Social Media, it now allows people to be able to communicate with their loved ones no matter how far away from each other, people can now express and share their experiences, know what the latest trend is and can now be informed of what the latest news and activities is. Its impact on Navigation is important also because it enables drivers to know how heavy the traffic is on the way to their destination to find a path to their destination that is more efficient than the former road. Lastly Its impact on today’s security, given that the risk is higher in regards to hacking and stealing information, but it is also providing some ways on how to avoid hacking and loss of information, for example, banks are now making mobile applications that notifies and individual every time whenever an activity occurs in the individual’s bank account. Another example is when the smartphone of an individual is somehow lost or stolen, there are mobile application services that can help the individual locate the smartphone and retrieve it.

“The leaning via mobile applications is unlimited” (Vora 2017) meaning to say that mobile applications has impated education in a positive way as regard to students learning more and more things and be aware of what is happening around him or her with just a click of a button from the student’s smartphone. It is also stated that mobile applications has impacted many aspects of life like social media, navigation security and learning, though having some downsides, mobile applications has been an important feat to this current society.

The researchers in this study about Development and Assessment of Android-Based Career Guide Application will utilize the statement of Vora (2017) in regard to the mobile application’s impact to education or learning. Since the focus respondents of this study are students and they currently have the access to mobile applications and gadgets. That will be able to help the students with their studies.

Mobile Application and It’s Effect to Students

The technology nowadays is developing and will continue developing. Its no wonder why there are things or inventions we discover from time to time. Technology makes life easier, from paper to screens, from manual to machines and more. Now we have mobile applications that can be used anytime, anywhere through smartphones.
Mobile applications are widely used nowadays in education. It gives different ways of learning that motivates the students to study. Its hard to find a way or tool that will help the students to focus on the discussion but through the help of mobile application it creates an engaging learning environment (Banerjee 2019). Another thing is that it gives information for everyone, not all students can buy a laptop and there are many affordable smartphones that is very handy and also can act as a laptop or computer. De (2019) also stated that it contributes in the environment for it doesn’t need papers. Its portability, it can be accessed everywhere which means they can learn everywhere, the application is with them all the time. It also helps the students to be more engaged and focused in learning because applications are interactive.
In the Philippines, Bernad (2014) mentioned the Text2Teach program. Text2Teach is a program that is conceptualized by Nokia, Pearson, the International Youth Foundation, and the United Nations Development Programme which is also knows as BridgeIT. According to Bernad (2014), the evaluation of the program from 179 schools said that the drop out rates decreased from 42% to 24% in Grade; and from 34% to 16% in Grade 6. The Text2Teach brought a life to learning in the schools.
Almost everyone has a smartphones on their hands with mobile applications in it and. it shows how technology helps education or learning more fun. This is relevant to the study for the medium that will be used for the Career guide or the content of the aptitude test will be through android-based mobile application that will be convenient for everyone especially students because they can access it anytime and anywhere.

Mobile Development

According to Patil (2016) Deciding whether to stay on native mobile application and cross-platform applications that would cater Android, iOS, Windows, and other platforms are the challenging decisions for the app developers. applications are necessary to all because it would be a great versatility to other organizations and people regardless of its size. Some dont want to interfere with various operating system because they are already satisfied with only having an app, where now-a-days it is necessary for applications to support any operating system for multiple sets of gadgets.

According to McPherson (2016), the trend towards mobile application continues to grow inevitably because with the fast innovation of tablets and smartphones, people can now do all the functions that laptops and desktops can do simultaneously but with less hassle and convenient. Addition to that there are more than 1.4 million ios apps and over 1.8 million android apps available that can cater every people’s needs such as productivity, leisure, entertainment, utility, and others.

Factors Affecting Career Choice

Choosing in what career to pursue is hard, it takes time to know if what an individual likes because this decision may also affect one’s future. Accordint to the study presented by ABS-CBN News, it showed that 7 out of 10 Filipino youth teenagers don’t have a dream. This is very alarming and the same time sad because how will the country will be able to strive when the youth itself don’t have dreams?

Choosing a program in college and a career path for an individual’s future is normally decided on age of 12 to 17 years old. But according to the research of Corrado and Mathesius (2014) teens that are aged 12 to 17 years are less psychosocial mature than those that are aged 24 and older. Being psychosocial mature is needed in decision-making because it is where how someone interact with their surroundings or environment that may influence one’s decisions in life. But there are other factors that may influence one’s decision. Personality and interest also affect one’s career choice because people are different and have their own preferences (Essay4Today 2017). Another thing is the cultural background, it can also influence an individual because it is where he or she grew up with and all the tradition and culture may influence him or her. Economic and social conditions of life is also a factor because there people who wants to take a specific program but can’t proceed because they can’t afford the fees. Addition to that, from the article of Burgess (2017) Brian Wexham the chief executive of SkillsOne said that to have a rational career choice, people should consider and find if what is their passion and connect it to their career or job. In this way, they will also have fun and enjoy their work at the same time.
The main focus of the study Development and Assessment of Android-Based Career Guide Application for Grade 10 SCPS Students is about helping and guiding the students to choose what is the right career for them. The factors mentioned above influences the career choice of the individuals that might confuse them. Through the career guide application they will be able to choose what is right for them.

Review of Related Studies

Association of Career Track Choices and the Profile of the Respondents

Heilbronmer (2011) said that students is likely to proceeding the STEM strand because of the quality and adequacy of preparations and scholastic of the students. Eremie (2014) studied about the comparative analysis of the factors influencing career choices among the senior secondary schools students in River State, Nigeria. It shows that students had significant differences in career choice when grouped according to their sex, parity, and parental influence. Postsecondary degree choices were also influenced by socio-economic background, cultural factors and especially English fluency were also relevant.

The study of Heilbronmer (2011) focuses on the strand upon which students will most likely will pick which is the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM strand due to its quality when it comes to preparing students for their future endeavors. While the study of Eremie(2014) focuses on the difference of career choices among students when grouped according to profile.

This study about the Development and Assessment of Android-Based Career Guide Application will utilize the study conducted by Eremie(2014) for it has the same approach used in this study. Similar to the study of Eremie (2014), this study will group the response of the students according to age, study habit, aptitude and interest. However, this study does not intend to dive deeper as to investigate the student's background to know why the student gave such a response.

Development of an Android-Based Application

In today’s generation, a lot of people are using gadgets like smartphone. Smartphones is considered to be important innovation that improved human lives in different ways. For every smartphone is functioned by an android which is currently powered by Google. Android has emerged as the most commonly used operating system. Many applications are available for entertainment that are used for fun and a lot of application that are used for educations like application for examinations like an Android based app named iquiz (Kathuria and Gupta 2015, 294). Android is an open-source mobile operating system with a platform based on Linux Kernel. It contains of the operating system, middleware and user interface and application software. (Holla and Katti 2012, 486). According to Holla and Katti (2012) Android Mobile Application Development is based on Java Language codes, allowing designers to write Java language codes. These codes are capable of controlling mobile devices through Java libraries By Google. According to Mukherjee, Prakash and Kumar (2015, 716). Android software development is the process by which new application are created for the Android operating system. Applications are commonly developed in Java programming language using the Android Software Development kit (SDK). The Android software development kit (SDK) includes a comprehensive set of development tools, including a debugger, libraries, QEMU-based handset emulator, documentation, sample code, and tutorials. The Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is a toolkit included with the Android SDK package. It comprises of both client and server-side programs that interact with each other. Typically, the ADB is accessed through the command-line interface, although there are countless graphical user interfaces to regulate the ADB.

Nowadays, a lot of people owns a smartphone and they carry it wherever they go. Android- smartphones has changed and improved society in several aspects. This is relevant to the study because the researchers are going to program an application that is android-based mobile application that will run an aptitude exam to test individual’s ability and sooner help the students to pick their own desire career to take in college.

Risk and Challenges on Developing a Mobile Application

A study titled Challenges and Best Practices in Mobile Application Development conducted by Kumar, Krishna, Prof. Manjula (2016) shows the different challenges faced by application developers. The author stated that the compatibility of the application with various platform is an important case as well as the Total cost and schedule time making the app and privacy and security of the use of the user for it determines the number of possible users might obtain.

Another study conducted by Kakkar, Shah, and Kakkar (2013) titled Risk Analysis in Mobile Application Development. Unlike the earlier mentioned study, this study focuses more on the risks involved when developing an application. Some of the risks are, financial risk maintenance risk, performance risk and resource risk which also talks about resource dependency, platform dependency and stakeholders investment. These are risks that focuses more on the resources the developers has to create an application and it also focuses on the risks that the developer has to face in order to maintain the application’s performance and functionality.

The study will most likely use both of the study since it will help the researchers make the application more smoothly. It will also enlighten the researchers about what are the things they have to figure out first of decide on first before starting the development of the application to avoid future problems like procrastination and lack of understanding of the current situation.

Online Reviews of Mobile Applications

When installing and using applications, there are pop-ups that will show to rate their applications or to give reviews. This gives help to the application developers to improve the performance of their application and have higher rating and good online reviews, others also call it as constructive criticism. The users tends to give positive feedback to the application when they write reviews (Iacob, Veerappa, and Harrison, 2). The result of their study also stated that the users also check if the applications that needs to be paid is worth it price, some said that its worth it but others also request for refund. The users also report connected issues, even though they are happy and satisfied at the app they still want improvements it looks for more. Normally, people may find a criticism or feedback as a failure but it is widely used in factors in learning and also use it as a instructional strategy. Constructive criticism gives a way to improvement when it is perceived in a positive way, it gives motivation and also improve one’s thinking and performance. (Carlton, Schallert, Williams, Williamson, Warner, Lin, and Kim 2018, 4)

Not all criticisms already results as a failure or negative. It actually helps something or someone to improve and to know what is lacking. This is relevant to the study because the researchers will conduct a survey to the Grade 10 SCPS students to evaluate or asses the Android-Based Career Guide Application. Accepting criticisms is needed in developing an application in order to improve its performance, to compete to the competitors, to serve the users right and to help them to be informed accurately.