A Case Study: Integrating a Game Application-driven Approach and Social Collaborations into Software Engineering Education

Teaching software engineering to undergraduate students is a challenge task. Students are expected to understand both technical and social aspects of software engineering. This paper presents a complete case study of a hybrid approach that systematically combines a game application-driven approach and social collaborations into the software engineering curriculum at the undergraduate level. The case study consists of 1) proposing a new curriculum design process, 2) identifying a set of software engineering principles, practices, and online collaborative learning tools by following the design process, 3) proposing a semesterlong game project, 4) integrating the principles, practices, and the collaborative learning tools into the game development process and 5) delivering the principles, practices, and tools to students during the game devolvement. The results of the case study, including analysis of the related project documentation and students’ feedback indicate that adopting the games app-driven approach motivate students to learn in teams, help transferring knowledge effectively between instructors and students and facilitate achieving the student learning objectives.