A case study of gender and online team communication in Software Engineering Education

Collaboration is crucial in Software Engineering (SE), yet factors like gender bias can shape team dynamics and behaviours. This descriptive case study examines an eight-week project involving 39 SE students across eight teams contributing to GitHub projects. Focusing on gender, we used a mixed-methods approach to analyse Slack communications, identifying gender differences in how students respond to initiated communications and comparing how students’ communications influenced other aspects of students’ performance, including learning gains. We found higher help-seeking and leadership behaviours in the all-woman team involved in this case study, while men responded more slowly. Although communication did not directly affect final grades, we identified statistical significance in the correlation between communication and students’ understanding of software development. With this case study showing that some students putting more effort into collaboration, future work can investigate diversity and inclusion training to balance these efforts. In addition, we observed a link between team engagement and a higher understanding of software development, highlighting the potential for teaching strategies that promote help-seeking. These findings could guide future research by integrating intersectionality to address the challenges that SE students face when using communication platforms, thereby fostering more equitable collaboration in SE Education.

Editor’s note: Open Science material was validated by the Journal of Systems and Software Open Science Board.