The Personal Software Process in the classroom: student reactions (an experience report)

Most people would agree that the quality of a product is related to the quality of the process used to develop that product. The quality of a computer program is often measured by the number of defects it contains. The Personal Software Process was developed to help programmers measure and improve their personal productivity. A subset of the Personal Software Process has been suggested as appropriate for beginning college students in introductory programming courses. This subset has been used over the past two years in several sections of a large first- and second-semester programming course with mixed success. Students recorded data during the development of their lab assignments and their major programming project, and submitted these along with their programs. Surveys were taken at the end of each course to determine student attitudes toward the Personal Software Process. Many students failed to recognize the benefits of such a process, and felt that is just took time away from learning the programming language. This paper explores the results of these surveys.