Samenvatting

Undergraduate students who seek a bachelor degree in Dutch universities of applied sciences are supposed to learn also research skills so that they can provide innovative solutions to real problems of the society and businesses in their future careers. Current education and textbooks on research skills are not tuned well to software engineering disciplines. This paper describes our vision about the scope and model of the research suitable for software engineering disciplines in Dutch universities of applied sciences. Based on literature study we identify a number of research models that are commonly used in computer science. Through reviewing a number of graduation reports in our university, we further identify which of the research models are most suitable for the (graduation) projects of software engineering disciplines and also investigate their shortcomings with respect to the desired research skills. Our study reveals that the approach of most graduation works is close to the implementation-based (also called build-based or proof by example based) research model. In order to be considered as a realization of sound applied research, however, most of theses graduation works need to be improved on a number of aspects such as problem context definition, system/prototype evaluation, and critical literature study.