370 Erziehung, Schul- und Bildungswesen
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Software engineering courses have to deliver theoretical and technical knowledge and skills while establishing links to practice. However, due to course goals or resource limitations, it is not always possible or even meaningful to set up complete projects and let students work on a real piece of software. For instance, if students shall understand the impact of group dynamics on productivity, a particular software to be developed is of less interest than an environment in which students can learn about team-related phenomena. To address this issue, we use experimentation as a teaching tool in software engineering courses. Experiments help to precisely characterize and study a problem in a systematic way, to observe phenomena, and to develop and evaluate solutions. Furthermore, experiments help establishing short feedback and learning cycles, and they also allow for experiencing risk and failure scenarios in a controlled environment. In this paper, we report on three courses in which we implemented different experiments and we share our experiences and lessons learned. Using these courses, we demonstrate how to use classroom experiments, and we provide a discussion on the feasibility based on formal and informal course evaluations. This experience report thus aims to help teachers integrating small- and medium sized experiments in their courses.
Software engineering education is supposed to provide students with industry-relevant knowledge and skills. Educators must address issues beyond exercises and theories that can be directly rehearsed in small settings. A way to experience such effects and to increase the relevance of software engineering education is to apply empirical studies in teaching. In our article, we show how different types of empirical studies can be used for educational purposes in software engineering. We give examples illustrating how to utilize empirical studies, discuss challenges, and derive an initial guideline that supports teachers to include empirical studies in software engineering courses.