Volume 7, Issue 4, April – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology ISSN No:-2456-2165 IJISRT22APR628 www.ijisrt.com 319 Programming Language Preference among Undergraduate Students in Nigeria * Adene, Gift Department of Computer Science, AkanuIbiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana Mbonu, Chinedu Emmanuel; Alade, Samuel Mayowa; Department of Computer Science, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Mba, Chioma Juliet Enugu State Polytechnic, Iwollo Abstract:- 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. Keywords:- Programming, Students, Computer Science, Nigeria, Preference. I. INTRODUCTION Computer technology ranks as one of the greatest innovations in human history. Majority of the innovations in the world today were sourced, developed or implemented with computer and computer programming. Computer programming is the process of designing and building an executable computer program to accomplish a specific computing result or to perform a specific task. It involves tasks like - analysis, generating algorithms, profiling algorithms' accuracy and resource consumption, and the implementation of algorithms in a chosen programming language [1]. Programming involves an understanding of activities, modifying and debugging computer program. Indeed, the acquisition of programming skills is described as a vital instrument for developing problem solving skill [2]. Programming languages are generally classified into two groups according to how their commands are processed and mode of their translation. They include functional, imperative and interpreted and compiled programming language. The imperative language program involves the decomposition of a programming tasks into collections of variables, data structure and subroutines. Besides, imperative or language uses a series of commands grouped into blocks and comprising of conditional statements, which allows the program to return to the block of condition if condition is met. However, the functional programming language, also known as procedural languages, is the language which creates programs using functions, returning to a new output state and receiving as input the result of other functions. [4] described functional languages as the language that rely on mathematical functions to allow the reflection of a problem at a higher level of abstraction. E.g. LISP. Examples of the programming languages according to their mode of translation includes VB.Net, BASIC, JAVA, Perl, Python, Prolog, PHP, LISP, MATLAB (interpreted and intermediate languages) while the examples of compiled programming languages include Pascal, ADA, C-language, C++, COBOL, FORTRAN. Today, the programming language has undergone improvements and extensibility due to advancement in computer technology. Hence, there exist structured programming and particularly Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) which has become the Centre of interest of programming language among classroom teachers for about two decades The major component of undergraduate Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) curriculum is programming. This is specified by the body which regulates university education in Nigeria, the one which regulates polytechnic education in the country and another which specifically regulates the practice of the computing profession in Nigeria. They are respectively the National Universities Commission (NUC), the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN). In fact, the last decade has witnessed a drastic change in the world of information technology, particularly it has brought about development in the computer technology which has affected both individual life and communal life. The importance of computer programming to undergraduate computer science and computer engineering students can never be overemphasized but despite its importance, many CS and CE students still run away from it. Some even go as