Software Startup Formation in an Experiential-Based Course - An Empirical Investigation of Students’ Motivations

Abstract

We added a Bootcamp external activity to our experiential-based course for first-year master students of Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Students engaged with realistic challenges from stakeholders while participating in the Bootcamp. We aimed to evaluate this year's student motivation in startup formation. We followed a mixedmethods approach combining data from a questionnaire and interviews. From the questionnaire, we found that the motivations regarding dimensions, such as startup formation increases, and the involvement of existing team members slightly decreased after Bootcamp. The interviews show that involving others-not only the existing team members-and having better funding opportunities are deemed crucial in future startup formations. The involvement in the startup formation of the existing stakeholders is still at a marginal level. The overall outcomes of the study help educators and researchers make educated decisions in relation to introducing startup formation within intensive software engineering experiential-based courses.

The development and validation of a framework for teaching software engineering through startup practice in higher education

“…More precisely, we expected that the former would be considered highly relevant in the face of creating a new startup. Nevertheless, our previously gathered evidence [11][12][13][14][15] is also aligned with the experts' ratings since students were not very keen on creating startups with existing team members only. However, for the latter, we expected it to be less significant since the instructor would be playing a facilitating/mentoring role, which is nevertheless key to student team success.…”

“…We find several studies [1][2][3][4][5][6] which combine inter-and multidisciplinary teams for realistic product creation through startup practices in an academic setting. Software-intensive courses focused on minimum viable product (MVP) creation are also common [7][8][9][10]; we made previous efforts to propose models that integrate startup concepts within softwareintensive experience-based courses [11][12][13][14][15]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no framework supporting student skills and startup-formation motivations incorporating external activities (i.e., an Innovation Bootcamp) in softwareintensive experience-based courses.…”

Towards transferring lean software startup practices in software engineering education

“…Moreover, I have published in ICSOB 2019 [9] and EASE 2020 [10] conferences evidence related to growth phase startup SE practices. Furthermore, I have made several contributions in SEE context associated with students' skills and startup formation motivation in venues such as ICSOB 2019 [8], EDUCON 2020 [11], and FIE 2020 with the title "Towards Designing an Experience-based Course around Innovation Bootcamps -A Cohort Study. "…”