SPIAL: uma ferramenta de apoio ao aprendizado de melhoria de processos de software

Abstract

Software is a complex artifact and its development is even more complex. Comparing with the past, this complexity has increased enormously. Today software is spread out everywhere and its role is more important than ever. The economic importance of software and the society dependence on it is unquestionable. In this scenario, marketsrequire reduced costs and short time of software production. This combination of complexity and market restrictions can cause a great amount of problems in the quality of the final product. One way to minimize these problems is to improve the work force preparation andthis leads to the basic Software Engineering education. Currently, Software Engineer-ing courses do not support students into the practice of some skills. Typically, a course consists of theoretical lectures and a small software development project. However, the methodologies based on such lectures and projects fail to provide a broad knowledge ofsoftware development processes necessary to their application in an industrial environ-ment, in particular, the ones not directly related to Software Engineering processes. In order to provide students with a more realistic experience of software develop-ment processes within the academic environment, we use simulation. Simulation can be an effective tool for enhancing learning and understanding of complex subjects. Inparticular, we believe that a simulation environment for Software Engineering processes can bring the same benefits observed in other domains, like airlines training. By using a simulator, difficulties can be planned and experienced without great risks. Therefore, the aim of this research is to improve the Software Engineering education in dealing with the complexity of providing to students experiences that resemblemore closely those in industry. We present how a Software Engineering simulation game, specifically, a Software Process Improvement simulation game, can teach best practices of Software Engineering to students. In order to investigate this subject, we designed and developed SPIAL, a graphical, interactive, customizable, simulation game and evaluated it through a pilot experiment and an inspection using the Semiotic Inspection Method. The educational aspects addressed in the experiment included the capability of students to understand, remember and apply Software Engineering concepts in the context of a CMMI software process improvement initiative. Our evaluation suggests that SPIAL is a useful complementary approach to teaching SPI and Software Engineering concepts. Students found it quite enjoyable and they had fun during the game play. In order to make the experience more educationally effective, future researches have been identified during the evaluations, such as incorporating other SPI phenomena and enhancing the interface design.