Modeling knowledge and practices in the software industry: An exploratory study of Turkey-educated practitioners

Abstract

Modeling helps software professionals to achieve various purposes via different approaches. Modeling stakeholders, who have different academic backgrounds (e.g., not only based on ”computing disciplines”), might be lacking knowledge in key modeling topics, which might be learned or improved at the workplace. To better align the modeling skills learnt at the academia with the expectations of the industry, it is important to analyze the relation between the educational skill-set and the modeling practices of the practitioners based on various modeling approaches. Moreover, understanding the-state-of-the-practices for modeling characteristics (e.g., purposes, languages, software development lifecycle phases, where modeling is used) is also necessary to provide a view on various modeling approaches used in the software industry. To achieve these goals, we designed and conducted a practitioner survey. 628 software practitioners, whose undergraduate degree was completed in Turkey, working in 13 countries responded the survey. This paper sheds light on the latest modeling practices with various cross-factor analyses by analyzing the relation of educational background with those modeling practices. Investigating how the way(s) of learning about software modeling affect related practices helps bridge the knowledge gaps. We believe that our findings would provide practical benefits to all modeling professionals (from developers to systems engineers and testers) and educators by influencing both the academia (mostly Turkish universities) and the industry.