Education, Innovation and Software Production: the contributions of the Reflective Practice in a Software Studio

Abstract

The growth of the mobile phone market has been generating a great demand for professionals qualified for applications (APPs) development. The required profile includes technical skills, also known as hard skills, and behavioral or soft skills. The training of these professionals in speed, quantity, and quality demanded by the market poses a significant challenge for educational institutions. Apple and PUCPR have established a partnership to build a software studio to develop such talents using the Challenge Based Learning (CBL) method and associated practices whose effects need to be studied. This research aims to analyze the contributions of reflective practice in a software studio to teach the main professional competencies regarding app development, including hard and soft skills. The research method was the case study, based on semi-structured interviews with 28 participants in three cycles. The collected data were analyzed with open and axial coding from Grounded Theory and Atlas.ti tool. The results demonstrate that reflective practice, applied in a software studio environment that uses CBL was able to help students to map new ideas and acquire valuable hard and soft skills. The study pointed out that reflective practice is an effective instrument for developing the skills required by the app market, which demands innovation and quality at high speed.