Title :
Do students recognize ambiguity in software design? A multi-national, multi-institutional report
Author :
Blaha, Ken ; Monge, Alvaro ; Sanders, Dean ; Simon, Beth ; VanDeGrift, Tammy
Author_Institution :
Comput. Sci. & Comput. Eng., Pacific Lutheran Univ., Tacoma, WA, USA
Abstract :
Successful software engineering requires experience and acknowledgment of complexity, including that which leads designers to recognize ambiguity within the software design description itself. We report on a study of 21 post-secondary institutions from the USA, UK, Sweden, and New Zealand. First competency and graduating students as well as educators were asked to perform a software design task. We found that as students go from first competency to graduating seniors they tend to recognize ambiguities in under-specified problems. Additionally, participants who recognized ambiguity addressed more requirements of the design.
Keywords :
computer science education; software engineering; software complexity; software design ambiguity; software engineering; Computer errors; Computer science; Computer science education; Design engineering; Engineering students; Information science; Information systems; Process design; Software design; Software engineering;
Conference_Titel :
Software Engineering, 2005. ICSE 2005. Proceedings. 27th International Conference on
Print_ISBN :
1-59593-963-2
DOI :
10.1109/ICSE.2005.1553613
