Software engineering group work: personality, patterns and performance

Abstract

Software Engineering has been a fundamental part of many computing undergraduate courses for a number of years. Although many of the tools and techniques used to undertake software engineering have changed, the assessment has typically stayed the same. Students are commonly tasked with producing a number of software artefacts, for example designs using the Unified Modelling Language (UML). We recently attempted to extend the software engineering experience for a group of second year students with them participating in groups that attempt to replicate industrial practice. This paper reports our investigation into the correlation between the personality of group members, their approach with respect to using design patterns and their learning achievements.