An Experience on Software Engineering Education Using Simulation Games

1. An Experience on Software Engineering Education Using Simulation Games Daniela Cristina CasciniKupsch

2. About me • Education: • Professor at Federal Center for Technological Education • Bachelor in Computer Engineering • PhD in Computer Science 2012 – UFMG/Vrije University • MBA in Project Management (Dom Cabral Foundation) • MSc in Computer Science - UFMG • Relevant Positions – Software Engineering: • Quality manager/Process manager – 7 years • Project manager – 2 years

3. Belo Horizonte

4. Context • The Software Engineering discipline adopts team-based projects 4 to 6 members per team: • Complete specification of a small software application. • They follow the Praxis process that prescribes the use of UML for the models and Java as the programming language, using test-driven techniques. • 20% of the teams (3 of 15): • did not deliver the source code • did not provide a code that compiled or executed correctly. • did not deliver the test artifacts.

5. Context

6. How much did you learn about the process during the team project development?

7. Context Considerable changes in educational processes are expected with the use of new pedagogic and educational technologies

8. Simulation Games • Simulation games are gaining increasing attention • Students can practice activities that are infeasible to practice during an academic course. • It reduces the risks of failure and the high costs of an actual practice.

9. Research Questions • RQ 1: Can students learn Software Engineering concepts or reinforce them using a simulation game? • RQ 2: What characteristics are required for a simulation game to be capable of supporting the learning process?

10. Research • Describe my experience in creating a Software Engineering simulation game. • Present the problems that we faced and the proposed solutions. The discussion is guided by a list of selected game attributes that are related to learning.

11. SPIAL

12. Game Attributes What are the game attributes that foster learning?

13. Simulation Games • The theoretical base of educational game is still incipient • A fewframeworks have been proposed to help during the development process. • And, it is not possible to make an association among the game requirements, attributes, and activities.

14. Frameworks [Staalduinen e Freitas, 2011] [Marcos e Zagalo, 2011] [Loh, 2009]

15. Game Attributes • How were these game attributes incorporated into the development process?

16. Problems What were the main problems faced during the development and assessment of simulation games? 1-Emphasis on the initial development phases 2- Assessments were mostly restricted to small pilot tests and subjective evaluations 3- Restricted number of represented industrial settings phenomena 4- Lack of academic context analysis

17. Solution 1- Emphasis on the initial development phases • Problem: Game development frameworks and SE simulation games: most of them emphasize the initial development phase. • Solution: • SPIAL: Overcome the problems found in other simulation games. • UGALCO: Afive-dimension framework for simulation games evaluation

18. Solution 2- Assessments were mostly restricted to small pilot tests and subjective evaluations. - Problem: • The evaluations mostly have been preliminary and informal in nature. • Evaluations of student’s perception of learning. - Solution: UGALCO Open question: evaluation of the learning effects

19. Solution 3- Restricted number of represented industrial settings phenomena. Problem: • There is no comprehensive investigation of industrial phenomena. Solution: • In SPIAL we investigated the literature about the SPI • Difficulty to find data in the literature or with the appropriate quality level. • Industrial data with noisy.

20. Solution 4- Lack of academic context analysis Problem: • This includes analysis of the instructors’, universities’ and students’ needs. • Quite superficial or non-existent in SE simulation games. Solution: • In SPIAL, we evaluate the students’ common problems in the team-based project and the instructors’ impressions.

21. Conclusion • Topics for collaboration: • Design and evaluation of simulation games • Development approaches for simulation games. • Conduct experiments with students. • Application of technologies in the classroom. • Future work: • Evaluation of the learning effect. • Improve games development processes. • Improve SPIAL (interface, behavior, supporting material)

23. Other Games • Mscrum – Multiplayer game - Web • PlayCode – Single Player - Smartphome