Paper Info
Title
An empirical study on students' ability to comprehend design patterns
Abstract
Design patterns have become a widely acknowledged software engineering practice and therefore have been incorporated in the curricula of most computer science departments. This paper presents an observational study on students' ability to understand and apply design patterns. Within the context of a postgraduate software engineering course, students had to deliver two versions of a software system; one without and one with design patterns. The former served as a poorly designed system suffering from architectural problems, while the latter served as an improved system where design problems had been solved by appropriate patterns. The experiment allowed the quantitative evaluation of students' preference to patterns. Moreover, it was possible to assess students' ability in relating design problems with patterns and interpreting the impact of patterns on software metrics. The overall goal was to empirically identify ways in which a course on design patterns could be improved.
Year
DOI
Venue
2008
10.1016/j.compedu.2007.10.003
Computers & Education
Keywords
Field
DocType
software metrics,software system,postgraduate software engineering course,system suffering,improved system,design patterns,design problem,student assignments,teaching methodology,empirical study,design pattern,software engineering course,appropriate pattern,architectural problem,software engineering practice,software metric,software engineering,teaching methods,engineering,observational study,observation,software systems,computer science
Behavioral pattern,Observational study,Computer science,Software design pattern,Software system,Curriculum,Pedagogy,Teaching method,Software metric,Empirical research
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
51
3
Computers & Education
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
13
0.68
15
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Alexander Chatzigeorgiou179060.13
Nikolaos Tsantalis274332.14
Ignatios S. Deligiannis31578.60