Peer assessment in experiential learning Assessing tacit and explicit skills in agile software engineering capstone projects

Abstract

To prepare students for real-life software engineering projects, many higher-education institutions offer courses that simulate working life to varying degrees. As software engineering requires not only technical, but also inter-and intrapersonal skills, these skills should also be assessed. Assessing soft skills is challenging, especially when project-based and experiential learning are the primary pedagogical approaches. Previous work suggests that including students in the assessment process can yield a more complete picture of student performance. This paper presents experiences with developing and using a peer assessment framework that provides a 360-degree view on students' project performance. Our framework has been explicitly constructed to accommodate and evaluate tacit skills that are relevant in agile software development. The framework has been evaluated with 18 bachelors-and 11 masters-level capstone projects, totaling 176 students working in self-organized teams. We found that the framework eases teacher workload and allows a more thorough assessment of students' skills. We suggest including self-and peer assessment into software capstone projects alongside other, more traditional schemes like productivity metrics, and discuss challenges and opportunities in defining learning goals for tacit and social skills.

Student and Faculty Adviser Insights in an Agile Methodology Integrated Filipino Company-Sponsored I.T. Capstone Program

“…In addition, a post program survey is sent out to students for feedback on their challenges. The use of surveys as evaluation tools is consistent with [8].…”

Participating in an Industry Based Social Service Program: a Report of Student Perception of What They Learn and What They Need

“…Moreover, agility in capstone courses have been explored in relation to other topics. Fagerholm and Vihavainen [11] have studied peer assessment to provide a full view of student performance in a project. In particular, self-assessment and peer review should provide insights with regard to learning goals.…”

Online Peer Assessment no ensino superior: uma revisão sistemática da literatura em práticas educacionais

“…Relatada em uma vasta gama de áreas de conhecimento como, por exemplo, na psicologia, na geografia, no ensino de línguas, nas ciências exatas, sociais e da computação, na medicina e na engenharia, a OPA tem sido incentivada por possibilitar o anonimato da autoria de forma mais eficiente (WEN; TSAI, 2006) ao permitir que os estudantes expressem livremente as suas ideias sobre o trabalho dos seus pares; por reduzir restrições relacionadas ao horário e localização (ISSA, 2012); por favorecer uma avaliação mais honesta e justa (JIMENEZ-ROMERO; JOHNSON; CASTRO, 2013;; por ajudar a resolver problemas relacionados com o volume de trabalho dos professores e de turmas com grande número de estudantes; e por permitir poupar tempo na classificação (FAGERHOLM;VIHAVAINEN, 2013).…”