Exploiting Paired Concepts to Facilitate Software Engineering Education

Abstract

In the university curriculum, software engineering (SE) is frequently perceived as a difficult course to study due to its concept-intensive nature.[Objectives]: We aim to investigate if and how we can help students conveniently understand and memorise the numerous and various SE concepts.[Method]: We employ critical reflection as the research method to qualitatively examine our educational activities, teaching materials, and students' learning effects.[Results]: By focusing on the paired structural model of knowledge representation, we propose to utilise tangentially-paired concepts together with the conventional bipolar-paired concepts to facilitate SE education. In particular, we have identified three types of tangentially-paired concepts with deriving (stemming), analogical, and cloning relationships respectively. [Conclusions]: Exploiting paired SE concepts can act as an efficient educational approach that supplements the existing strategies for teaching SE knowledge.