Abstract
AbstractIt is a non‐trivial task for research‐centric courses in the software engineering curriculum to compete and engage students on the same level as the practical, software development courses. Practical software development courses and projects are inherently motivating to students, as they provide necessary elements such as agency, relatedness, and the strong sense of competence upon completing software engineering tasks. In contrast, reading research articles and technical white papers feels dry and non‐engaging. Nevertheless, a well‐balanced MSc programme curriculum covers both, learning through construction and practical courses as well as research courses. The main motivation for the development of game‐centric approaches to the research aspects of curriculum is to improve students’ interest and engagement with those courses. In this paper, we present the methodology and initial evaluations from three gamification strategies used in the Master's degree programme. These are: the game of reading and discussing research articles (GoRaD), the game of arguing and counter‐arguing, and combining research and practice. The paper presents our experimentation and initial evaluations of the use of those strategies, as well as plans for future development and enhancements.
Highlights
Software engineering education [33] is an important subfield of software engineering focusing on education topics for software engineering e.g., how to better teach and train software engineering skills
We present the methodology and initial evaluations from three gamification strategies used in the Master's degree programme
It is the responsibility of software engineering education to prepare software engineering professionals by providing them with the skills to meet the expectations of the software industry [22,23,24]
Summary
Software engineering education [33] is an important subfield of software engineering focusing on education topics for software engineering e.g., how to better teach and train software engineering skills. Software engineering education at postgraduate level, in addition to the aforementioned areas, includes research and preparation for research Those aspects are qualitatively different from acquiring skills in developing software projects. MSc degree courses include the traditional process of reading and reviewing research articles This is to facilitate students acquiring necessary skills for comprehension of research, critical and logical thinking, and the skills of argumentation. This paper presents our work focused on gamification of the research components of a Software Engineering Masters level degree. To achieve the desired goals, we use three strategies in various courses, which put the students at the center of the activity Those are: the Game of Reading and Discussing, oral/written argumentation exercises, and linking research and practice. The final section infers the conclusions, future work and limitations in this area
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