Emulating Real World SE Practices in Computer Science Classrooms

This research-to-practice paper describes the analysis of the application of Project Based Learning (PjBL) using industry standard tools and practices (ISTP) in Computer Science / Software Engineering courses and investigates the students' engagement and learning effectiveness. PjBL is an instructional strategy that helps students to learn and acquire skills by solving real world problems. Industry standard tools (e.g., GitHub, Jenkins etc.) and industry standard practices (e.g., Agile method based practices) can be used to imitate the real-world software engineering activities in a PjBL classroom. Many scholars have studied the impact of PjBL on student performance, retention, motivation, and engagement. While existing studies make contributions, there exists a knowledge gap on the interplay between industry standard tools and practices (IST&P) and PjBL. Moreover, the effectiveness of IST&P in supporting students' performance, motivation and engagement in PjBL have not been well studied and are largely unknown. Consequently, instructors are hardly intentional about the integration of IST&P to PjBL, this makes it more difficult for students to learn how to use IST&P in PjBL leading them to graduate without being well prepared for the real-world software engineering industries. To fill this gap and contribute to knowledge, this paper investigates the effectiveness of IST&P in the learning effectiveness, and the engagement of the students in Software Engineering courses. We carried out an empirical study among 68 students in a mid-sized classroom of a small university in Northern Pennsylvania, United States. We collect data using the Reduced Instructional Materials Motivation (RIMMS) survey as one of our instruments to evaluate students' engagement, and the Topical Content Test (TCT) based on the revised Bloom's taxonomy to evaluate the learning effectiveness of the proposed PjBL process. Our results show that PjBL using IST&P has a significantly positive impact on students' engagement. It also significantly correlates with the learning effectiveness in project based SE courses. We also noticed that although this process leads students to perform highest in Analysis and Evaluation levels of Bloom's taxonomy, students with better performance in Application level performs better in the Create level.