The Role of Project Management: an approach adopting cross-year tutoring

1
The Role of Project Managementan approach
adopting cross-year tutoring

• Elizabeth Burd
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Durham

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Data Confidentiality

• The data presented within this representation has
  been modified to preserve confidentiality.
  Changes have been made in a way, however, to
  ensure that the essence of the data findings are
  maintained.

3
Presentation Contents

• Teaching Group Work and Project Management in
  Durham
• The cross-year tutoring approach
• Results of pilot study 2001/2 and for full module
  (academic year 2002/3)

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Software Engineering in Durham

• Level 2/3, 40 CAT points module
• Just under 100 students
• Students take 55 lectures and 88 hours supported
  practicals
• Group project supports theory of lectures
• Assessment by individual work, group work and
  unseen examination paper.
• Module called SE (incorporates SEG)

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Problems with Group Work

• Assessment not all students put in an equal
  contribution
• Management when faced with tight deadlines
  theoretical principles are inevitably abandoned
• Chairpersons there is often strong competition
  for the role of chair but students do not know
  each other well when appointments
• Group dynamics some groups fail to gel. Often
  these members fail to explain the seriousness of
  the problem to supervisors for fear of being
  down-marked.

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Existing SEG Project Management
SEG Coordinator
Group customer/ tutor

Group chairman
Student roles
Phase leader
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Students Perception of SEG

• Enjoy the practical work
• Put in more effort that other modules
• See relevance of module to industry
• (Mostly) enjoy the opportunity to work as a group
  
• Opportunity to demonstrate programming skills

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Staff Perception of SEG

• Course focus on software engineering
• Loose their modules time to group work
  activities
• Less important than degree programme technical
  content
• Considerable amount of work

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Level 3 Project Management Module

• 1 technical lecture per week including industrial
  experts
• 2 hours practical work (1 hour individual work, 1
  hour work with group)
• Tied to the Software Engineering / Computer
  Science with Management Programmes

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New SEG Project Management
SEG Coordinator
SE customer SE tutor

Group Project Manager
Level 3 role

Phase leader
Level 2 roles
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Project Management Module

• Indicative content
• risk, cost, effort assessment
• team software process
• forecasting and judgement technologies
• new implementation approaches
• measuring the software process
• Assessment
• Learning log (tutor set and student identified
  topics)
• Oral Presentation

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Benefits of Approach

• Scaleable
• Practical involvement (realistic?)
• More personal contact for SEG students
• Consistency of SEG direction
• Students participate in more honest discussions
  of problems

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Module Risks

• Loss of academic tutor for SEG
• Suitability for some students
• Students over/under involvement
• Complaints from Level 2

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The Pilot Study

• 16 out of the 17 groups agreed to assist in
  project
• Students applied for PM positions work with a SEG
  group (open to all SE students)
• All abilities of students (based on staff
  concerns)
• Students worked from end of design until
  completion of implementation
• Both Level 2/3 students were surveyed to reported
  impressions of scheme.
• PMs were asked to provide effort weightings as
  well as Level 2 students (self and cross-year
  tutor assessment)

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The Objectives of the Pilot Study

• The use of cross-year tutors assist successful
  product delivery (timing and quality)
• Group work students find the assistance of a
  cross-year tutor approach beneficial
• Final year students perceive a benefit for
  cross-year tutoring enhances their project
  management skills
• cross-year tutors effort assessment are more
  accurate than that of the tutor.

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General Results

• Popular with Level 3 students for CV
• Most level 2 groups wished to be involved
• No significant problems
• Some good unexpected benefits

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Successful Product Delivery

• Timeliness
• Design delivered later that usual
• Implementation all completed on time, each
  included some testing
• Quality
• Design marks up 5
• Implementation marks 6

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Group work students find PM system beneficial

• Identified most useful activities
• 1. Support through previous experience
• 2. Advice on testing
• 3. Assistance with team meetings
• 4. Advice on programming
• 5. Explanation of marks

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Group work students find PM system beneficial

• When asked to rate benefits of PM on scale of 1 -
  10 (10 being most useful) average score was 7.3.
• 3 students expressed dissatisfaction (score of 5
  or less), 2 of these were students that staff had
  placed on progress warning

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Enhanced PM skills

• Identified most useful activities
• 1. Working towards improving motivation
• 2. Conducting team meetings
• 3. Mentoring
• 4. Task allocation
• 5. Conducting progress reviews

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PM effort assessment is more accurate than that
of the tutor
Do tutors have sufficient knowledge of their
group members progress? Over 57 of the tutors
felt unable to provide accurate individual effort
adjustments for all the students within their
group
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Product Assessment

• Comparing staff to student marking identified the
  following ranks
• Staff 9,2,6,10,3,16,11,17,5,7,8,4,1
• Student 9,2,16,3,11,10,17,7,6,4,5,1,8

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Product Assessment

• Comparing staff to student marking identified the
  following ranks
• Staff 9,2,6,10,3,16,11,17,5,7,8,4,1
• Student 9,2,16,3,11,10,17,7,6,4,5,1,8
• difference between ranks of group 6 equals 3

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(No Transcript)
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PM effort assessment is more accurate than that
of the tutor?

• All sets agreed (7)
• Staff fail to spot contribution issues (1)
• PM fail to spot contribution issues (1)
• Staff highlight possible false contribution issue
  (2)
• PM highlight possible false contribution issue
  (2)
• Minor disagreements (3)

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Minor disagreement issues
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Anomalies in effort reviews

• Anomalies were identified when comparing effort
  reviews using self, peer, PM, and staff
  assessment
• Problems were mainly related to self assessment,
  but were relatively few in number, (less than
  10)
• ranking self higher than others (4 students)
• ranking self lower than others (2 students)

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Can non-supervisors identify contribution issues?

• All students who failed to attain an appropriate
  level of contribution were identified
• Some additional students identified as potential
  contribution problems

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Potential pitfalls of peer-mentors

• Student contribution (Level 2 estimate less work
  than Level 3 identified)
• Some Project Managers will over contribute -
  replicate issues of Level 2
• (Un)expected failures for contribution
• Difficulties in coping with module change
• Helping students with other modules...

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Potential pitfalls of peer-mentors

• Estimation of work put in by cross-year tutors
  (Project Manager)
• Estimation by PM 12 1/4 hours
• Estimation by SEG 6 1/2 hours

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Potential pitfalls of peer-mentors

• Explanation of marking criteria

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Results for full module

• Implemented this year as full module
• Results of 1st and 2nd terms are very promising
• No significant logistical problems or complaints

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Increased motivation and participation

• 83 of survey respondents expressed a positive
  attitude to their active involvement within the
  module.
• All students said that they had been involved
  within reflective practices of the Software
  Engineering process.
• 64 saw a direct benefit of their work to their
  future careers.

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Increased responsibility for their own learning

• All students identified through the survey that
  they had been in a position to practice the
  application of taught skills
• 83 identified that they had also had
  opportunities to practice skills learned in
  previous years.
• Further of those who expressed an opinion 78 of
  the students stated, unprompted, that the best
  part of the module was the opportunities to
  practice these learned skills.

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Increased depth of understanding and accuracy

• 60 of Project Management students obtained a
  mark higher than the year average.
• 22 of the Software Engineering degree students
  showed an improvement on previous years grades

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Resources

• Support for Pilot study LTSN-ICS - 2,500
• Grant from University of 10,000 (equipment)
• Support from CLTR of 4,250 - Centre for Learning
  and Teaching Research Education Department
  (result analysis and publication)
• Support from Department allocation of room,
  running of module, payment of 2 demonstrators (1
  technical, 1 group relations)

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Benefits

• Some students shine
• All students seemed to enjoy experience
• Experience in areas otherwise hard to provide
• Opportunities for more applied PM studies, i.e.
  metrics, maintenance
• Reduction in staffing time

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Benefits (somewhat less academic!)

• Sorting general university problems
• Socialising
• Bribing
• Feeding us (Bangers and Mash)
• Buying us pints, making us cups of tea
• loving us...

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Student Comments

• The scheme provides facilities for developing
  leadership which is unique within modules.
• All the job interviews I have been to, the
  interviewers seem interested and focused on the
  project management module and what I have learnt.
  I think that they can relate to the problems and
  experiences.
• I think that it gives students real insight into
  what project management would be like in the work
  place. It seems easy until you have tried it!

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Conclusions

• Group work skills are a valuable and valued part
  of the curriculum resourcing it can be difficult
• Project Manager scheme seem to be a good
  learning/support mechanism
• Peer assessment is an extremely useful tool for
  checking assessment and student learning

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Acknowledgements

• Thanks to the following for the assistance with
  this work
• Malcolm Munro (HoD, Alternate lecture on SE
  module)
• Sarah Drummond (SEG Administrator)
• Brendan Hodgson (Director of UG Studies)
• LTSN-ICS and Centre for Learning and Teaching in
  HE, for financial support