Improving the Requirements Inspection Abilities of Computer Science Students through Analysis of their Reading and Learning Styles

摘要

Due to the complex nature of software development process, there is an increasing demand for skilled software engineers that is expected to grow more in future [1]. Students are expected to graduate with the necessary skillset for pursuing their careers in software industry. However, research [2] reports that students in academic settings mostly work on small scale projects and lack an exposure to industrial strength artifacts as well as team-based activities that are expected of them when beginning their jobs in software industry [3]. Therefore, there is a need for educators to train students on skills essential for their jobs in software industry. One such skill deals with their abilities to review industrial strength software artifacts (e.g., requirements and design documents) to find and fix faults early in the development process. On that end, Software Requirements Specification (SRS) is considered as one of the most critical phases wherein requirements of the software system under development are gathered from technical and non-technical stakeholders are translated into Natural Language (NL) document (i.e. SRS document) [4]. Faults manifest during SRS development due to the inherent nature of NL (i.e. ambiguity, imprecision, and vagueness). These faults, if left undetected can propagate to the later stages where they are harder to find and fix [5].