Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The Constructionist Approach To Object-Oriented Systems Analysis And Design Pedagogy

Abstract

A major limitation in traditional classes in systems analysis and design is that students often are unable to "experience" the process in a real world setting. This limitation can be overcome by using the constructionist approach in a local environment that includes the students working in teams to develop a system design based on a real organization. This allows them to be involved in the process to "do" or "construct" knowledge as they work on the system design. This paper describes a case scenario that was developed based on the constructionist approach, to teach students object-oriented systems analysis and design (OOAD) using the Unified Process. A proof of concept evaluation was conducted and the results indicate that this approach is effective in OOAD pedagogy.