Establish whether undergraduate students receive authentic requirements-engineering experiences

Establish whether undergraduate computing students are provided with sufficiently deep, authentic learning experiences involving real-world stakeholders to elicit, document, verify, and deploy technological business requirements.

Background

Requirements Engineering was the second-highest-rated self-efficacy construct in the study, but the authors question whether students’ academic projects expose them to the stakeholder-centered practices required in professional settings. They note that students often create their own project ideas, invent requirements, or negotiate requirements with instructors and peers rather than engaging with actual organizational stakeholders.

The unresolved issue concerns whether students’ reported confidence reflects genuine mastery of professional requirements engineering or a mismatch between classroom tasks and workplace practice. Addressing it would help determine how software-engineering curricula should incorporate authentic stakeholder engagement and requirements work.