Problem-based Learning for Requirements Engineering

Project Team
Principal Applicant:	Ms Jocelyn Armarego (School of Engineering)
Co- Applicant:	Dr Sally Clarke (TLC)
Research Assistant	Ms Shalin Koh (School of Engineering)

Description of the Project

Background

Requirements Engineering is considered a difficult domain to teach - it has been classed as a 'wicked problem' (Bubenko, 1995), with the inadequacy of formal education in training competent analysts/designers noted (Robillard, 1999). Within a curriculum addressing such a domain, a foundation in the content needs to be balanced with elements of creativity and experience based on practice. These issues may better be addressed through less traditional approaches to learning. As one example of an alternate approach, problem-based learning (PBL) integrates the learning of content and skills in a collaborative environment, and emphasises ''learning to learn'' by placing great responsibility for learning on the learner (Wilson & Cole, 1996).

Objectives

While PBL has been applied to higher level learning (eg Bloom's level 5 or 6), there is a perception, within the School of Engineering at least, that it is not appropriate for the learning of fundamental concepts. This project aims to explore this by changing the approach to teaching in an introductory unit. G260 Requirements Engineering is a unit offered in the first semester second year of a 4-year undergraduate engineering program in Software Engineering (SE). It comprises the first of the eight core SE courses on offer. Although enrolment is typically less than 20 students, the unit is seen as fundamental in introducing a learning approach that is crucial in such a 'wicked' domain.

References

J. Bubenko, "Challenges in Requirements Engineering: keynote address," presented at RE'95: Second IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering, York (UK), 1995. P. N. Robillard, "The role of knowledge in software development," Communications of the ACM, vol. 42, pp. 87-92, 1999. B. G. Wilson and P. Cole, "Cognitive teaching models," in Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology, D. H. Jonassen, Ed. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996, pp. 601-621.