Teaching software engineering early - Experiences and results

In the fall of 1994 we reorganized the content of our three-course computer science introductory sequence in order to introduce software engineering concepts early and provide a consistent software engineering focus from one course to the next. We also established documentation and design standards that would serve as a framework for teaching the software engineering principles and techniques that we considered appropriate and essential to novice software developers. In an attempt to assess the impact of this new teaching process, we compared the performances in upper-level project-oriented courses of students who had been exposed to the new introductory sequence to those of students who had not. This paper describes the documentation and design standards established in 1994, their evolution over the past four years, and how these standards can be used as a framework for teaching software engineering concepts early in the curriculum. It also reports on what we have learned through tracking our students. We found that, in three upper-level courses, project grades for students exposed to software engineering concepts early averaged as much as half a letter grade higher than those of other students.