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

The work-reflection-learning cycle in SE student projects: Use of collaboration tools
respect, and that an existing retrospective reflection workshop approach can be used to
frame the exploration of historical data in the collaboration tools. The thesis does not
offer a ready-to-use workshop template in this respect, but offers guidelines for the
evaluation of the potential of tools to be used in retrospective reflection and a
recommendation to integrate the exploration of historical data into a timeline and
satisfaction curve workshop approach. In Contribution 4 the answer to RQ4 is framed
theoretically and generalized to project based learning at large through the model
outlining the work-learning-reflection cycle.
7.2 Evaluation of the contributions with respect to state-of-theart
of the SE Education, TEL and CSCW research fields
This section provides an overview of how the research contributions add to the literature
outlined in the state-of-the-art chapter (Chapter 3).
Contribution 1 adds to SE education and TEL research on the challenges of project
based learning (Section 3.1). The findings on how students address stakeholder
objectives and how we can help the students be more conscious about these objectives
(P1) contributes to the literature on stakeholder collaboration in SE project courses. The
study in P2 adds to the limited but growing literature on student participation in OSS
development. Additionally, the study in P2 provides a contribution to the TEL body of
literature on project based learning by applying the CoP concept of brokering to shed
light on the relationship between individual work and learning and that of the team.
Finally, the thesis research on instant messaging represents a small increment to stateof-the-art
TEL research on the use of collaboration tools in project based learning and to
the literature on instant messaging in educational contexts.
Contribution 2 brings forward state-of-the-art research on the use of lightweight
collaboration technology to support project based learning (Section 3.2). The thesis
research on project wikis (P4) in day-to-day project work also adds to the CSCW
literature on tool support for small-scale project work, in which the use of project wikis
has so far not been extensively addressed. The research on wikis can also be seen as a
contribution to the TEL literature, in which previous studies of wikis in educational
contexts have mainly been addressing wikis as learning technology and not – as in this
thesis – as tools for collaborative work.
Contribution 3 brings forward state-of-the-art research in SE education and TEL on
how to support project based learning (Section 3.3), focusing on how to support one
particular aspect of the work practice: retrospective reflection. Also, Contribution 3
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