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On the Evaluation of Student Team Software Development Projects

Published:24 February 2015Publication History

ABSTRACT

Project experience and teamwork have been identified as two of the most important deficiencies of recent graduates, so experiences with team projects are a critical component of computer science and software engineering education. However, evaluating these projects is difficult, as it requires a balance between rewarding the team's effort (and the development of skills that enable the team to work effectively) and recognizing individual contributions. We report on an investigation of the student perspective on evaluation of software development team projects. We find that (1) computer science and software engineering educators hold several misconceptions about students' preferences in teamwork evaluation methods, (2) that students' preferences with regard to evaluation change dramatically as they advance through the program and even in the course of a single term, and (3) that the change in preference occurs early in the term, before they complete any work as a team, with most students shifting their preference towards putting more weight on the team's effort.

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    • Published in

      cover image ACM Conferences
      SIGCSE '15: Proceedings of the 46th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
      February 2015
      766 pages
      ISBN:9781450329668
      DOI:10.1145/2676723

      Copyright © 2015 ACM

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      Publication History

      • Published: 24 February 2015

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      SIGCSE '15 Paper Acceptance Rate105of289submissions,36%Overall Acceptance Rate1,595of4,542submissions,35%

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