Exploring the Influence of Cohesion on Team Performance Behaviors in Software Engineering Education

Nowadays it is generally recognized that in order to be an effective software engineer one requires skills for performing in a team. Therefore, research on team working skills in software engineering education has been gaining more attention. Most of the studies have focused on how a certain learning-teaching approach impacts team work. Despite these efforts, human aspects haven't had the attention they deserve to better educate software engineering students. This work shows the results of a pilot study in software engineering education related to the influence of cohesion on team performance behaviors. The relation between these variables is looked at through the lens of an IMOI (Input Mediator Output Input) model. Team cohesion acts as a mediator to improve team performance behavior outputs, whereas the intervention on cohesion is seen as the input. After some appropriate training on team working skills, students have to establish team rules on communication and conflict management. We assume that this will improve the team cohesion, and lead to more effective team performance behaviors. Improvement of the rules (input again) is then based on tracking the behaviors of individual contributions to the team work. The study presented here was performed in the software engineering program at University of Holguin in Cuba.

ISBN:9789899887572

Publication year:2017

Accessibility:Closed