Gamification strategy to promote social and human factors in the training of software engineers: A case study

Abstract

Software Engineering is a discipline frequently reflected in training strategies. This discipline requires certain levels of abstraction to achieve the competencies and skills necessary for the professional development of future software developers. The software industry increasingly demands that professionals in this discipline have social and human skills to achieve highly productive teams. Therefore, these teams should respond to such demands in a world with increasing dependence on technology and the development of software products. Traditional pedagogical strategies often need help adapting to the new generations of software engineers and responding in a limited way to the demands of teaching processes related to this discipline. This article evaluates a gamification-based strategy designed for the Software Engineering course at a Latin American higher education institution. This course addressed software project management as a training objective. Such a strategy was designed with a gamification-based model to influence the productivity of software development teams. The results of using the model show its efficiency and usefulness as a guide for implementing new strategies based on gamification that considers social and human factors (SHFs) to intervene in the productivity of software development teams. The challenges designed in the proposal presented managed to promote SHFs in the participants, according to the analysis of the prepared case study. According to these results, the factors considered relate to skills and experience in managing software development projects, motivation, and communication. The activities executed by the participants in the context of the case study strengthened the human side of the team and allowed its growth to achieve its objectives.