Turning Padawans into Jedis: using worked examples to improve the newcomer's skills in open software projects

• Grant number: 21/06662-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: January 01, 2022
• End date: June 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Computer Science - Computing Methodologies and Techniques
• Agreement: MCTI/MC
• Principal Investigator: Igor Scaliante Wiese
• Grantee: Igor Scaliante Wiese
• Host Institution: Campus Campo Mourão. Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Campo Mourão , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Christoph Treude ; Eduardo Martins Guerra ; Fabio Calefato ; Igor Fabio Steinmacher ; Ivanilton Polato ; Marco Aurélio Gerosa ; Paulo Roberto Miranda Meirelles ; Reginaldo Ré ; Walter Takashi Nakamura
• Associated scholarship(s): 23/01534-0 - Turning Padawans into Jedis: using worked examples to improve the newcomer's skills in open software projects, BP.TT; 22/05339-5 - Turning Padawans into Jedis: using worked examples to improve the newcomer's skills in open software projects, BP.TT; 22/04234-5 - Implementing Chatbot: turning Padawans into Jedis: using worked examples to improve the newcomer's skills in open software projects, BP.TT

Abstract

Many young developers join Open Source Software (OSS) projects to improve programming and other software skills. However, developers onboarding to OSS face many difficulties and are often left to learn independently. In a previous case study, we have shown that 80% of newcomers end up dropping out. They face barriers to learning knowledge and skills necessary to accomplish a task and elicit support from project members. Without appropriate learning support, newcomers become demotivated, consume community resources, and end up giving up. Therefore, our general goal is to support newcomers in learning skills as they begin to contribute to an OSS project. A neglected aspect in the literature is how newcomers learn new skills and support this process. OSS projects offer a great opportunity for problem-based learning, which the literature has shown to be an effective approach to acquiring technical knowledge and skills. OSS projects openly publish their code and the open tasks (called issues), from which developers can select a task that they can carry out. Besides developing skills working on existing open issues, newcomers can analyze closed issues (and the associated code), which may serve as worked examples. Thus, we propose scaffolded skill learning for newcomers by creating support structures of worked examples so that newcomers learn from previously accomplished tasks and from individuals who have recently made the journey. These strategies are unexplored in the literature related to Software Engineering, which is a highly complex, abstract, and context-dependent activity. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

SANTOS, FABIO; VARGOVICH, JOSEPH; TRINKENREICH, BIANCA; SANTOS, ITALO; PENNEY, JACOB; BRITTO, RICARDO; PIMENTEL, JOAO FELIPE; WIESE, IGOR; STEINMACHER, IGOR; SARMA, ANITA; et al. Tag that issue: applying API-domain labels in issue tracking systems. EMPIRICAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, v. 28, n. 5, p. 52-pg., 2023-09-01. (21/06662-1)

VENTURINI, DANIEL; COGO, FILIPE ROSEIRO; POLATO, IVANILTON; GEROSA, MARCO A.; WIESE, IGOR SCALIANTE. I Depended on You and You Broke Me: An Empirical Study of Manifesting Breaking Changes in Client Packages. ACM TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING AND METHODOLOGY, v. 32, n. 4, p. 26-pg., 2023-07-01. (21/06662-1)

SANTOS, ITALO; PIMENTEL, JOAO FELIPE; WIESE, IGOR; STEINMACHER, IGOR; SARMA, ANITA; GEROSA, MARCO A.; IEEE. Designing for Cognitive Diversity: Improving the GitHub Experience for Newcomers. 2023 IEEE/ACM 45TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING-SOFTWARE ENGINEERING IN SOCIETY, ICSE-SEIS, v. N/A, p. 12-pg., 2023-01-01. (21/06662-1)