Software engineering has been taught at many institutions as individual course for many years. Recently, many higher education institutions offer a BSc degree in Software Engineering. Software engineers are required, ...Software engineering has been taught at many institutions as individual course for many years. Recently, many higher education institutions offer a BSc degree in Software Engineering. Software engineers are required, especially at the small enterprises, to play many roles, and sometimes simultaneously. Beside the technical and managerial skills, software engineers should have additional intellectual skills such as domain-specific abstract thinking. Therefore, software engineering curriculum should help the students to build and improve their skills to meet the labor market needs. This study aims to explore the perceptions of software engineering students on the influence of learning software modeling and design on their domain-specific abstract thinking. Also, we explore the role of the course project in improving their domain-specific abstract thinking. The study results have shown that, most of the surveyed students believe that learning and practicing modeling and design concepts contribute to their ability to think abstractly on specific domain. However, this finding is influenced by the students’ lack of the comprehension of some modeling and design aspects (e.g., generalization). We believe that, such aspects should be introduced to the students at early levels of software engineering curriculum, which certainly will improve their ability to think abstractly on specific domain.展开更多
In mathematics, physics, and engineering, abstract concepts are an indispensable foundation for the study and comprehension of concrete models. As concepts within these fields become increasingly detached from physica...In mathematics, physics, and engineering, abstract concepts are an indispensable foundation for the study and comprehension of concrete models. As concepts within these fields become increasingly detached from physical entities and more associated with mental events, thinking shifts from analytical to conceptual-abstract. Fundamental topics taken from the abstract algebra (aka: modern algebra) are unquestionably abstract. Historically, fundamental concepts taught from the abstract algebra are detached from physical reality with one exception: Boolean operations. Even so, many abstract algebra texts present Boolean operations from a purely mathematical operator perspective that is detached from physical entities. Some texts on the abstract algebra introduce logic gate circuits, but treat them as perceptual symbols. For majors of pure or applied mathematics, detachments from physical entities is not relevant. For students of Computer and Electrical Engineering (CpE/EE), mental associations of Boolean operations are essential, and one might argue that studying pure Boolean axioms are unnecessary mental abstractions. But by its nature, the CpE/EE field tends to be more mentally abstract than the other engineering disciplines. The depth of the mathematical abstractions that we teach to upper-division CpE/EE majors is certainly up for questioning.展开更多
文摘Software engineering has been taught at many institutions as individual course for many years. Recently, many higher education institutions offer a BSc degree in Software Engineering. Software engineers are required, especially at the small enterprises, to play many roles, and sometimes simultaneously. Beside the technical and managerial skills, software engineers should have additional intellectual skills such as domain-specific abstract thinking. Therefore, software engineering curriculum should help the students to build and improve their skills to meet the labor market needs. This study aims to explore the perceptions of software engineering students on the influence of learning software modeling and design on their domain-specific abstract thinking. Also, we explore the role of the course project in improving their domain-specific abstract thinking. The study results have shown that, most of the surveyed students believe that learning and practicing modeling and design concepts contribute to their ability to think abstractly on specific domain. However, this finding is influenced by the students’ lack of the comprehension of some modeling and design aspects (e.g., generalization). We believe that, such aspects should be introduced to the students at early levels of software engineering curriculum, which certainly will improve their ability to think abstractly on specific domain.
文摘In mathematics, physics, and engineering, abstract concepts are an indispensable foundation for the study and comprehension of concrete models. As concepts within these fields become increasingly detached from physical entities and more associated with mental events, thinking shifts from analytical to conceptual-abstract. Fundamental topics taken from the abstract algebra (aka: modern algebra) are unquestionably abstract. Historically, fundamental concepts taught from the abstract algebra are detached from physical reality with one exception: Boolean operations. Even so, many abstract algebra texts present Boolean operations from a purely mathematical operator perspective that is detached from physical entities. Some texts on the abstract algebra introduce logic gate circuits, but treat them as perceptual symbols. For majors of pure or applied mathematics, detachments from physical entities is not relevant. For students of Computer and Electrical Engineering (CpE/EE), mental associations of Boolean operations are essential, and one might argue that studying pure Boolean axioms are unnecessary mental abstractions. But by its nature, the CpE/EE field tends to be more mentally abstract than the other engineering disciplines. The depth of the mathematical abstractions that we teach to upper-division CpE/EE majors is certainly up for questioning.
