Lessons Learned About Gamification in Software Engineering Education

Software engineering courses traditionally mix theoretical aspects with practical ones that are later used in the development of projects. Teaching software engineering courses is not easy because in many cases the students lack motivation to exercise the topics prior to project development. This chapter presents the application of gamification on some topics of a software engineering course to engage students and increase their motivation. The authors argue that with the proper motivation, the students can better exercise the topics and obtain stronger knowledge. The authors have created five games to help in the learning process of the software engineering course. The games are related to risk management, BPMN modeling, Scrum process, design and inspection of class diagrams, and COSMIC functional size measurement. Gamification has been applied during four years in the software engineering course, resulting in an improved learning experience for the students. Finally, lessons learned are presented and discussed.