Award Abstract # 2337270
Fostering Software Engineering Competence through Valid, Reliable, and Practical Assessments of Individual Contributions to Team Projects

NSF Org: DUE
Division Of Undergraduate Education
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA
Initial Amendment Date: June 25, 2024
Latest Amendment Date: June 25, 2024
Award Number: 2337270
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Paul Tymann
ptymann@nsf.gov
 (703)292-2832
DUE
 Division Of Undergraduate Education
EDU
 Directorate for STEM Education
Start Date: July 1, 2024
End Date: June 30, 2027 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $227,702.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $227,702.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2024 = $227,702.00
History of Investigator:
  • Phillip Conrad (Principal Investigator)
    pconrad@cs.ucsb.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of California-Santa Barbara
3227 CHEADLE HALL
SANTA BARBARA
CA  US  93106-0001
(805)893-4188
Sponsor Congressional District: 24
Primary Place of Performance: University of California-Santa Barbara
3227 CHEADLE HALL
SANTA BARBARA
CA  US  93106-0001
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
24
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): G9QBQDH39DF4
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): HSI-Hispanic Serving Instituti
Primary Program Source: 04002425DB NSF STEM Education
Program Reference Code(s): 8209, 9178
Program Element Code(s): 077Y00
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.076

ABSTRACT

This IUSE Computer Science Level 2 Engaged Student Learning project aims to serve the national interest by preparing software engineering students to make high-quality contributions to team software projects. The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a pedagogical approach for undergraduate software engineering courses that include team software development projects. In these courses a significant problem is assessing the contributions that a student makes to their team. This problem will be addressed by deriving the desirable qualities of four key software engineering artifacts that team members contribute to a software project. Based on these qualities, students will learn how to contribute high-quality artifacts by assessing and reflecting on their and their peers? artifact contributions. This project will strengthen software engineering education by developing rigorous methods for assessing the quality of software project contributions.

This project will iteratively refine and empirically evaluate a valid, reliable, practical, and just approach to assessing the software engineering artifacts that individual software engineers contribute to team software development projects. By taking a rigorous empirical approach to deriving the desirable properties of individuals? contributions, developing a valid and reliable method for assessing individuals? contributions against those properties, and making assessments practical through a software tool that enables assessments to be easily performed on samples of individuals? contributions, this project will (a) contribute a novel pedagogy for fostering software engineering competence through peer review and reflection; (b) improve instructors? ability to assess their students? learning, and (c) enhance researchers? ability to study and evaluate pedagogies for team projects in software engineering education. The NSF IUSE:EDU Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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