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SEI Conference on Software Engineering Education

SEI 1988: Software Engineering Education pp 121–144Cite as

Undergraduate software engineering education

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 327))

Abstract

Software engineering education is a difficult venture at very best but the difficulty of teaching software engineering ideas at the undergraduate level is even more problematic. The most significant problem in undergraduate software engineering education is, not surprisingly, lack of maturity. From our experience over the last six years this immaturity manifests itself in three different areas: computer science, academics in general, and social and personal relations. Each of the these manifestations of the undergraduate's lack of development has a significant impact on their ability to understand software engineering concepts. The results of our study on the unique pitfalls of undergraduate software engineering education are detailed in the first of the two papers that follow.

We feel that software engineering should be an equal partner in our undergraduate computer science major with the more traditional hardware and software topics. Based on our experiences, we have developed an approach for teching software engineering which considers the immaturity of undergraduates and attempts to avoid the problems it imposes. The second paper briefly outlines our approach, which is based upon the sound educational principle of iteration of basic concepts and the eventual synthesis of those concepts into second and third level relationships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. United States Air Force Academy, USA

    William E. Richardson

Authors
  1. William E. Richardson
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Gary A. Ford

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© 1988 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Richardson, W.E. (1988). Undergraduate software engineering education. In: Ford, G.A. (eds) Software Engineering Education. SEI 1988. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 327. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0043595

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0043595

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-96854-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-34779-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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