Experimental Evaluation of a Serious Game for Teaching Software Process Modeling

Abstract

Software process modeling (SPM) is an important area of software engineering because it provides a basis for managing, automating, and supporting software process improvement (SPI). Teaching SPM is a challenging task, mainly because it lays great emphasis on theory and offers few practical exercises. Furthermore, as yet few teaching approaches have aimed at teaching SPM by introducing innovative features, such as games. The use of games has mainly been focused on other areas of software engineering, for example software project management. In an attempt to fill this gap, this paper describes a formal experiment carried out to assess the learning effectiveness of a serious game (DesigMPS), designed to support the teaching of SPM, and to compare game-based learning with a project-based learning method. In the DesigMPS game, the student models a software process from an SPI perspective, based on the Brazilian SPI model (MPS.BR). The results indicate that playing the game can have a positive learning effect and results in a greater degree of learning effectiveness than does the project-based learning instructional method.Index Terms-Project-based learning, serious game, software engineering education, software process modeling. software process, software quality, project management, CASE tools, software development environment and information systems.

The effect of games and simulations on higher education: a systematic literature review

“…There has been an impact evaluation across subject disciplines, such as Computer Science (Strycker, 2016), Engineering (Chaves et al, 2015), Physics (Adams, 2016), Medicine (Dankbaar, 2016), Nursing (Sarabia-Cobo, 2016), Management (Geithner & Menzel, 2016), Political Sciences (Jones & Bursens, 2015), Education (Ke, 2015), Languages (Franciosi, 2016), and Social Sciences (Cózar-Gutiérrez & Sáez-López, 2016).…”

“…In general, most studies report that students develop a positive attitude toward the pedagogical adoption of games and simulations in education (Divjak & Tomić, 2011;Bekebrede, 2011;Ibrahim et al, 2011;Beckem & Watkins, 2012;Tanner et al, 2012;von Wangenheim et al, 2012;Halpern et al, 2012;Terzidou et al, 2012;Hanning et al, 2013;Giovanello, 2013;Cvetić et al, 2013;Kovalik & Kuo, 2012;Li & Tsai, 2013;Hainey et al, 2011;Boeker et al, 2013;Nkhoma et al, 2014;Costa et al, 2014;Chaves et al, 2015;Riemer & Schrader, 2015;Angelini, 2016;Geithner & Menzel, 2016). The participants in Dudzinski et al (2013) respond positively towards a serious web-based game, describing the experience as interesting, stimulating and helpful, as well as a valuable addition to their pharmacy curriculum.…”

Evaluating an Educational Escape Room Conducted Remotely for Teaching Software Engineering

“…The evaluation of the experience indicated a number of tangible benefits helping students achieve their learning goals. In [47], a serious computer game to teach software process modeling to undergraduate students was reported. The study showed that students who played the game increased their learning to a greater extent than students who were taught using a project-based instructional method instead.…”

Educational Games in Higher Education

“…A software process can be modeled with this serious game by students. Playing the DesigMPS can have a positive learning efect [29].…”