Guiding Principles for Assessing Software Engineering Teams

This research-to-practice full paper presents guiding principles for developing assessments based on our experience in teaching the software engineering capstone course over the last twelve years. Software engineering courses are central to computer science and engineering programs. To provide students with an authentic learning experience, teams of students work on realistic projects that help them apply theoretical concepts to develop practical skills. Challenges arise with increasing class sizes and limited teaching resources. Despite these constraints, educators must intentionally design assessments that align with learning theories that promote deeper learning opportunities and support lifelong learning. In this work, we report on our experience designing and adapting the assessments used in our software engineering capstone course over the past twelve years. We reflect on our approach by aligning the evaluation strategies to learning theories such as behaviorism, constructivism, and social constructivism. This research-to-practice paper discusses the practical implications behind different assessment strategies in the face of large class sizes and presents guiding principles for developing assessments for software engineering team projects.