Student Perceptions of Group Formation in Software Engineering Courses

Collaborative learning in groups has practical and pedagogical benefits. In software engineering education, the group formation stage can have an important influence on the quality of learning and students' satisfaction with their group. Knowledge of student experiences and preferences regarding group formation can inform course design and hopefully lead to better learning outcomes and student satisfaction. In this paper, we report experiences of group formation in software engineering courses, focusing on students' perspectives. We used surveys administered on three master's level software engineering courses, through which we explored students' prior experiences with group work in educational settings and their perspectives on how groups should be formed. We present results on students' thoughts about who should form groups, what information criteria they would consider as relevant when forming groups, and what kind of group formation strategy they prefer. Our results indicate that students preferred to keep the group formation process in their own hands, that they considered grade ambitions, educational background, and time availability to be important factors to consider, and that they generally preferred the formation strategy already used on the courses they attended. We also discuss how students' prior experiences may have coloured their perceptions of group formation strategies and the ethical dilemmas facing instructors when choosing different strategies. We present points of consideration for teachers who are interested in improving group formation on their software engineering courses.