Programming Language Preference among Undergraduate Students in Nigeria

This paper focuses on accessing the programming language preference among Computer Science and Computer Engineering undergraduate students in two Nigerian tertiary institutions. Its aim is to understand and bring to light, the reason behind the programming language choice and how it affects the design output and problem-solving ability of the students. Questionnaires were administered via Google docs and 410 Computer Science and Computer Engineering students of AkanuIbiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, responded. The researcher asked questions based on curriculum, lecturers’ influence, design goal, component reusability, platform consideration, and ease of debugging, code portability and more. The respondents revealed that they have personal favorites and that they would prefer a language that is stated in the curriculum and taught to them in addition to considering the complexity of the language elements, target platforms and suitability for the problem at hand and lecturers’ influence. The researcher recommended that modern programming languages that can solve different real-life problems be incorporated into Computer Science and Computer Engineering curriculums in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Lecturers were also urged to learn and master modern programming languages.