Skip to main content

What we have learned about software engineering expertise

  • Session 7 Developing Software Engineering Expertise
  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Software Engineering Education (SEI 1991)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 536))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 182 Accesses

Abstract

A knowledge elicitation project was conducted to provide material for a course in software system debugging skills. Although the results confirmed aspects of the general model of human expertise in the cognitive science literature, focusing on the critical role of strategy, of creating a cognitive model of the problem domain, and of metacognition, there also were less expected findings. In particular, the importance of social skills was highlighted, even for so technical a task as code reading. In the industrial environment, expert debuggers are aware of the social contexts both of the environment in which the original code was written and in which the debugging is being done. This knowledge is useful in selecting paths of investigation and also in making efficient use of human resources in debugging.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Bibliography

  • Glaser, R. & Chi, M. T. H. 1988. Overview. in Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Farr, M.J. The nature of expertise, Hillsdale, N.J.:Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flanagan, J. C. 1954. The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin. 51.4:327–358.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, J., Riedl, T., Weitzenfeld, J. S. & Musa, J. 1991. Instruction for Software Engineering Expertise. Fifth SEI Conference of Software Engineering Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, G. A. 1989. Utility of the Critical Decision Method for eliciting knowledge from expert C debuggers. Proprietary to Klein Associates and Bell laboratories.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein, G.A., Calderwood, R., & MacGregor, D. 1989. Critical Decision Method for eliciting knowledge. IEEE Transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics. 19.462–472.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pennington, N., & Hastie, R. 1976. Evidence evaluation in complex decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 51:242–258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weitzenfeld, J.S., Klein, G. A., Riedl, T., Freeman, J. T., Musa, J. 1991. Knowledge elicitation for software engineering expertise. Fifth SEI Conference of Software Engineering Education.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

James E. Tomayko

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Riedl, T.R., Weitzenfeld, J.S., Freeman, J.T., Klein, G.A., Musa, J. (1991). What we have learned about software engineering expertise. In: Tomayko, J.E. (eds) Software Engineering Education. SEI 1991. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 536. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0024298

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0024298

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-54502-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-38418-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics