Engendering an Empathy for Software Engineering

Students have little empathy for the fundamentals of Software Engineering practice when it is first introduced. The current method of teaching this topic involves the presentation of curriculum material through lectures. Whilst being an effective method of teaching this information, it does not provide students with enough opportunity to develop an interest in, and an understanding of, the subject. To engage students in this area and to provide them with a deeper understanding of the issues involved in software development, an interactive, web-based, graphical simulation game of the software development process was created. This simulator allows students to take the role of the project manager developing a hypothetical software product in an environment that is both graphical and entertaining.