Wouter Groeneveld

Wouter Groeneveld, Laurens Luyten, Joost Vennekens et al.

In order to solve today's complex problems in the world of software development, technical knowledge is no longer enough. Previous studies investigating and identifying non-technical skills of software engineers show that creative skills also play an important role in tackling difficult problems. However, creativity is typically a very vague concept to which everyone gives their own interpretation. Also, there is little research that focuses specifically on creativity in the field of software engineering. To better understand the role of creativity in this field, we conducted four focus groups, inviting 33 experts from four nationally and internationally renowned companies in total. This resulted in 399 minutes of transcripts, further coded into 39 sub-themes grouped into seven categories: technical knowledge, communication, constraints, critical thinking, curiosity, creative state of mind, and creative techniques. This study identifies the added value of creativity, which creative techniques are used, how creativity can be recognized, the reasons for being creative, and what environment is needed to facilitate creative work. Our ultimate goal is to use these findings to instill and further encourage the creative urge among undergraduate students in higher education.

Wouter Groeneveld, Joost Vennekens, Kris Aerts

Peer assessment is a popular technique for a more fine-grained evaluation of individual students in group projects. Its effect on the evaluation is well studied. However, its effects on the learning abilities of students are often overlooked. In this paper, we explore self-evaluation, motivation, and study time of students in relation to peer assessment, as part of an ongoing project at our local Faculty of Engineering Technology. The aggregated measurements of two years so far show that: (1) students get much better at evaluating their own project on some, but not all, of the evaluation criteria after a peer assessment session, (2) students report in a follow-up survey that they are more motivated to work on their project, and (3) the relation between motivation and time spent on the project increases. These results suggest that peer grading could have positive long-term effects on the reflective, and therefore lifelong learning, skills of students. A better understanding of the evaluation criteria results in more accurate self and peer grades, emphasizing the importance of properly defining and communicating these criteria throughout the semester.

Wouter Groeneveld, Joost Vennekens, Kris Aerts

Higher education provides a solid theoretical and practical, but mostly technical, background for the aspiring software developer. Research, however, has shown that graduates still fall short of the expectations of industry. These deficiencies are not limited to technical shortcomings. The ever changing landscape of 'lean' enterprise software development requires engineers to be equipped with abilities beyond the technical. How can higher education help students become great software developers in this context? As a first step towards answering this question, we present the results of a systematic literature review, focusing on noncognitive abilities, better known as 'soft skills'. Our results identify self-reflection, conflict resolution, communication, and teamwork as the top four taught skills. Internships and capstone projects require more attention as a teaching aspect to facilitate the learning of multiple skills, including creativity. Interdisciplinary teaching and group composition are other important factors that influence learning. By providing novel insights on relationships between noncognitive abilities and teaching aspects, this work contributes to the continuous improvement of software engineering curricula. These findings may also serve as a springboard for further investigation of certain undervalued skills.

Wouter Groeneveld, Hans Jacobs, Joost Vennekens et al.

Important building blocks of software engineering concepts are without a doubt technical. During the last decade, research and practical interest for non-technicalities has grown, revealing the building blocks to be various skills and abilities beside pure technical knowledge. Multiple attempts to categorise these blocks have been made, but so far little international studies have been performed that identify skills by asking experts from both the industrial and academic world: which abilities are needed for a developer to excel in the software engineering industry? To answer this question, we performed a Delphi study, inviting 36 experts from 11 different countries world-wide, affiliated with 21 internationally renowned institutions. This study presents the 55 identified and ranked skills as classified in four major areas: communicative skills (empathy, actively listening, etc.), collaborative skills (sharing responsibility, learning from each other, etc.), problem solving skills (verifying assumptions, solution-oriented thinking, etc.), and personal skills (curiosity, being open to ideas, etc.), of which a comparison has been made between opinions of technical experts, business experts, and academics. We hope this work inspires educators and practitioners to adjust their training programs, mitigating the gap between the industry and the academic world.