The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

programming) taught in other courses be followed. Students contrast the SE practices
prescribed by the course staff to the customer’s requirements and ‘the real world’: “I do
not think companies [..] need so much. [..] as what we do [..] in school. Because as it
turned out, we were writing a lot of reports, and then our supervisor from
said I do not need all these pages, I just want concrete things”.
4.4. Potential boundary objects are not actual boundary objects in the projects
Project artifacts intended by staff to be boundary objects are not always perceived by
students as relevant to stakeholders’ goals. For instance, certain models and associated
diagrams are typically perceived as unnecessary or purely 'school knowledge'. Students
do however reflect on the difference between models supporting development work and
models for cross-community communication. “..[].. the models and the documentation
we make is mainly to give us an understanding; they are not so much for them [..]. It is not necessarily the same models, it is not necessarily done in the
same way.” Also, the course staff’s requirements are contrasted with the group’s
needs:.”[I] have on several occasions felt that ’this model, we do not really need it’, but
we have to spend time on it because the school requires it to be there.”
5. Implications for the pedagogical design of customer-driven SE projects
It is not problematic that customers have several goals for their project participation,
as long as students’ learning is not as a consequence being downgraded in the projects.
The involvement of course staff usually ensures a focus on the formal learning goals.
Customers’ various goals, in our view, underscore the potential of customer-driven SE
projects to serve a role beyond the confines of the SE study program.
It is however a challenge to have all stakeholder goals made explicit. Our findings
indicate that students’ interpretation of stakeholder goals is inadequate, making it
difficult for students to decide what project artifacts are important to what stakeholders,
and in what way. Customers and course staff also have an interest in knowing about the
goals and students’ understanding of them; this allows for elaboration on the meaning
of the goals and negotiation over their importance when priorities must be made.
One aspect which should be kept in mind as we stress whether students give
mandatory or recommended project artifacts a role as boundary objects in their work, is
their purpose: effective cross-community collaboration to reach a good project result. If
students find a better way of collaborating with their customer, e.g. over a different
type of boundary object, course staff should give due credits to the approach. In terms
of pedagogy, the project supervisor must be able to see when advice should be given to
adhere to standard artifacts in a prescribed way, and when students should be ‘let loose’
to follow their own approach. Underlying our viewpoint here is the assumption that
students’ learning benefits both from their active development of their own solutions
and from an experience of mastery in their project [16].
A related issue is the perceived discrepancy between real life and school knowledge
among the students in our study. This could be interpreted as a useful insight on part of
the students, but also as a lack of ability to see the applicability of particular tools and
techniques in a real project. To have students experience the usefulness of various
project artifacts, it may be pedagogically necessary to make mandatory the development
of certain artifacts. It is however essential to have students actively relate to the link
between artifacts and stakeholder goals, which implies having students provide their
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