Design Decisions Matter: Conveying the Importance of Software Engineering Best Practices through Hybrid PBL

This Research Full Paper presents the implementation of a hybrid Project-Based Learning (PBL) model in a Software Engineering (SE) course to balance the focus on teaching fundamental knowledge and fostering of applied software development skills through a real-world project, accompanied by contextualized learning and Just-In-Time (JIT) teaching to develop students' scalable knowledge of how to intelligently design with respect to SE best practices. The data is collected from 2 semesters spanning over 2019 and 2020. Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis, this study examines the effectiveness of using the hybrid PBL approach in conveying to students the importance of SE best practices such as the SOLID principles which are deemed as timeless. Results support the claim that JIT lectures help students better evaluate their design decisions and ensure they're on the right track for following optimal design patterns and best practices, and that contextualized learning may be used to develop a notion of why design decisions matter outside of the classroom. Although incorporating these pedagogies in hybrid PBL allows for students' conviction of the significance of SE best practices in academic projects, there still exists room to better convey their significance in industry.