Improving Grading Outcomes in Software Engineering Projects Through Automated Contributions Summaries
Teaming is a key aspect of most professional software engineering positions, and consequently, team-based learning (TBL) features heavily in many computer science (CS) and software engineering programs. However, while TBL offers many pedagogical benefits, it is not without challenges. One such challenge is assessment, as the course teaching staff must be able to accurately identify individual students’ contributions to both encourage and reward participation. In this paper, we study improvements to grading practises in the context of a CS1.5 introductory software engineering course, where assessing individual students’ contributions to weekly lab assignments is done manually by teaching assistants (TAs). We explore the impact of presenting TAs with automated summaries of individual student contributions to their team’s GitHub repository. To do so, we propose a novel algorithm, and implement a tool based off of it, AutoVCS. We measure the impact on grading metrics in terms of grading speed, grading consistency, and TA satisfaction. We evaluate our algorithm, as implemented in AutoVCS, in a controlled experimental study on Java-based lab assignments from a recent offering of Anonymous University’s CS1.5 course. We find our automated summaries help TAs grade more consistently and provides students with more actionable feedback. Although TAs grade no faster using automated summaries, they nonetheless strongly prefer grading with the support of them than without. We conclude with recommendations for future work to explore improving consistency in contribution grading for software engineering teams.
Fri 19 MayDisplayed time zone: Hobart change
15:45 - 17:15 | SE education methods and toolsTechnical Track / SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training at Meeting Room 101 Chair(s): Andrew Begel Carnegie Mellon University | ||
15:45 15mTalk | On the Applicability of Language Models to Block-Based Programs Technical Track Elisabeth Griebl University of Passau, Benedikt Fein University of Passau, Florian Obermueller University of Passau, Gordon Fraser University of Passau, René Just University of Washington | ||
16:00 15mTalk | Improving Grading Outcomes in Software Engineering Projects Through Automated Contributions Summaries SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Kai Presler-Marshall Bowdoin College, Sarah Heckman North Carolina State University, Kathryn Stolee North Carolina State University | ||
16:15 15mTalk | Analyzing the Quality of Submissions in Online Programming Courses SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Maria Tigina JetBrains Research, Anastasiia Birillo JetBrains Research, Yaroslav Golubev JetBrains Research, Hieke Keuning Utrecht University, Nikolay Vyahhi Stepik, Timofey Bryksin JetBrains Research Pre-print | ||
16:30 15mTalk | A Metric for Measuring Software Engineering Post-Graduate Outcomes SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training | ||
16:45 7mTalk | Using Focus to Personalise Learning and Feedback in Software Engineering Education SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Bansri Amish Modi School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Andrew Cain School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Guy Wood-Bradley Deakin University, Jake Renzella University of New South Wales, Sydney | ||
16:52 7mTalk | Shaping a Tool for Developing Computing Students’ Professional Identity - Industry Perspectives SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Laura Tubino Deakin University, Kerri Morgan Deakin University, Guy Wood-Bradley Deakin University, Andrew Cain School of Information Technology, Deakin University | ||
17:00 7mTalk | REFERENT: Transformer based Feedback Generation using Assignment Information for Programming Course SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Jinseok Heo Sungkyunkwan University, Hohyeon Jeong Sungkyunkwan University, Dongwook Choi SungKyunKwan University, Eunseok Lee Sungkyunkwan University | ||
17:07 7mTalk | Factors Affecting Compilable State at Each Keystroke in CS1 SEET - Software Engineering Education and Training Steven Scott Utah State University, Arto Hellas Aalto University, Juho Leinonen The University of Auckland, John Edwards Utah State University |