TOWARD GAMIFICATION IN SOFTWARE ENGINEERING PRACTICE

Abstract

This thesis seeks to expand the explanation and examine the application of gamification strategies in software engineering practice, specifically in the education setting. I hypothesize that gamification strategies, deployed in the situated learning experience, can help students develop and maintain professional practice more effectively. To verify my hypothesis, first, I identify effective strategies for applying gamification to software engineering practice accompanied by a theoretical framework through desk analysis, and through an empirical study to examine whether gamification is feasible for software engineering practice. Then, we conducted a series of experiments to examine the effectiveness of gamification in software engineering practice. This work focuses on one representative software engineering practice: test-driven development practice (TDD), which are hard to develop and maintain for students and novice developers. Test-driven development (TDD), which has received considerable attention in recent years, is an example of key software development practice, and past literature suggests that TDD is strongly associated with high-performing engineering practices. First, I conducted an observational study to show that TDD can be applied gamification. Then, I have experimented with treatment and control groups to show that I can improve students? TDD practice efficiency using gamification, and distinguish the impact of different gamification strategies. Furthermore, I have developed evidence that gamification effect retain after intervention ceasing. Our research argues that gamification is a valuable tool for promoting the development and maintenance of software engineering practices among students.