Teaching Practically Relevant Research Problem Formulation in Software Engineering with Lean Research Inception
This addresses the gap between academia and industry in software engineering education, though it is incremental as it applies an existing method to a new educational context.
The study tackled the challenge of aligning software engineering research with industry needs by applying Lean Research Inception to help students formulate practice-relevant problems, resulting in reported benefits such as improved reasoning (60%) and clarity (61.7%) among students and high advisor recommendation rates (85.7%).
[Background] Well-formulated Software Engineering (SE) research problems are essential for bridging the gap between industry-academia. Lean Research Inception (LRI) aims to support this activity. [Goal] Apply LRI to support SE students in formulating practice-aligned research problems. [Method] We conducted a case study with 60 students and 7 faculty advisors of a Brazilian university. [Results] Students reported benefits in reasoning (60%), clarity and definition (61.7%), contextualization (60%), and communication (50%). Advisors also observed clearer and more structured problems (57.1%) with a high recommendation rate (85.7%). [Conclusion] LRI can be a promising approach to support practice-aligned research problem formulation in SE education.