Motivating and orienting novice students to value introductory software engineering

Students with little professional software development experience typically have low intrinsic motivation and beyond achieving a good grade, low extrinsic motivation to study and appreciate the value of software engineering curricula. Unlike other subjects, introductory software engineering instructors exert a great deal of effort justifying and motivating their course topics. Since 2006 the University of Hawaii has been developing a series of “early awareness” engagements within an introductory Systems Analysis and Design course designed to foster intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and orient students to value learning software engineering. Measuring motivation and perceived value is difficult, but there are key indicators to determine the impact of our improvements such as higher course evaluations, greater class attendance, and increased positive feedback from students and employers. Our results show that these key indicators have improved since introducing early engagements. Furthermore, students like this approach, value the course more, do better quality work, and evaluate the course more positively. Longitudinal follow-ups indicate greater interest and success in pursuing software engineering related careers. This paper shares the details of our early awareness engagements, how they are applied in the classroom, some of our experiences in using them, and evidence that they have a positive impact. Our goal is to provide specific and practical means that instructors can use immediately to improve the perceived value of software engineering for novice students prior to or while they study it.