Reflections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course

Anne-Maarit Majanoja and Timo Vasankari

Department of Information Technology, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

Keywords: Capstone, IT Student Projects, Project-based Learning.

Abstract: For students, capstone project represents the culmination of their studies and is typically the last milestone

before graduation. This paper reflects on organizing IT capstone projects in computer science and software

engineering Master programmes in a Sino-Finnish setup. Based on our analysis we introduce various

aspects based on our observations for improving course practicalities, introduction lectures, students’

initiative group working and overall interaction. We also discuss the importance of active learning and

transferring the responsibility of learning from teachers to students in order to achieve the intended learning

outcomes. During a capstone course students design and implement a solution to a complex, ill-defined real-

life problem. We present and discuss the results from student feedback surveys and propose areas for further

development.

1 INTRODUCTION

During the past years, capstone project has been an

important part of the curricula for studies in

Information Technology (IT). Based on Merriam-

Webster dictionary capstone means: “the high point:

crowning achievement”. Therefore, the project is the

capstone of IT studies where the students use all

their acquired skills and knowledge in culminating

their academic experience. The main idea behind the

capstone course is to provide an opportunity for IT

students to demonstrate their true capacity to

integrate and apply their knowledge and skills to a

real-life (software) engineering problem.

Based on Rasul et al. (2012), capstone project is

a unique type of learning experience for the students

as they mainly work in a self-directed approach and

they are expected to carry out various and numerous

tasks related a large problem without structured

approach provided by teachers. Naturally, the

students are not fully out-of-support, but the idea is

to transfer the learning process to be student-led

instead of teacher-led. While the learning approach

is different, also the assessment is based on different

aspects. The consistency of the assessment practices

of the capstone course needs to be ensured and

clearly communicated to the students. As Mills

(2007), Bramhal et al. (2012) and Gardner and

Willey (2012) identified, the capstone assessment

can include various tools from self- and peer-

evaluation, process and product assessments,

formative and summative assessments (such as the

working process and the final outcome of the

development), and students self-reflection of their

learning in course-diaries/blogs.

The aim of this paper is to reflect on various

aspects of organizing capstone projects as courses.

Structured student feedback collected at the end of

the course expresses student experiences and

provides data to discuss the relevance of various

parts of the course. The students’ feedback and

teachers’ observations are used to provide

recommendations for iterative course development

at the University of Turku, Finland. The University

of Turku and Fudan University, China, have a

strategic partnership of collaboration and provide a

dual master’s degree in Technology. Therefore, the

two main student groups during the capstone courses

were Finnish and Chinese students. In this research

we analyse the master level capstone course

feedback materials from years 2014 to 2017 and

complete the findings with teachers’ observations on

the courses.

The rest of the paper has been divided into four

parts. Section 2 deals with existing research and the

theoretical dimensions of Problem-based Project-

oriented Learning (POPBL). Section 3 describes the

research design. Section 4 presents the findings.

Section 5 includes the conclusions and introduces a

few tasks for further research.

Majanoja, A. and Vasankari, T.

Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course.

DOI: 10.5220/0006665600680077

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2018), pages 68-77

ISBN: 978-989-758-291-2

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Over the years, one of the most used approaches has

been the teacher-centric approach, where the teacher

has the full control and authority while lecturing at

the front of the class-room. Senge (1996) wrote that

most people expect to get answers from people

above them, because they have grown up in an

authoritarian environment and culture. Nowadays,

this type of approach does not support the target to

prepare students for their future workplace and face

constantly changing working environment and

requirements. Therefore, the responsibility of

learning and own actions need to be pushed onto the

students’ side. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an

example of a student-centered educational model

(Barrows, 1996; Gwee, 2008, Savin-Baden, 2012)

although based on literature PBL’s effects are

controversial (Dochy et al. 2003; Kirschner et al.

2006; Schmidt et al. 2009). In PBL approach,

students’ own learning process is placed at the

centre of the educational process by supporting the

students to construct their own knowledge, and to

develop problem-solving and group work skills

(Dolmans et al. 2005).

PBL and POPBL based capstone project is one

implementation of a student-centric approach to

provide opportunities for students to apply their

content specific knowledge and workplace skills

gained during their several years of studies (Dunlap,

2005; Lehmann et al., 2008; Dondlinger and

McLeod, 2015). The focus is not only on technical

skills but also on having the ability to identify non-

technical aspects, interaction of those and propose

possible solutions (Lehmann et al., 2008). Since the

1980s, the capstone type of learning approach has

been part of universities’ curriculum (Vanhanen et

al. 2012). The capstone approach is commonly used,

for example, in software development project

courses where students design and develop software

solutions in teams for external customers (Vanhanen

et al., 2012).

Havelka and Merhout (2009) reported IT

professional competences that IT professionals

should have. In addition to technical aspects, many

of the needed skills were non-technical and

behaviour related. Havelka and Merhout (2009)

categorized those skills under four categories: 1)

Personal traits (passion, experience,

conscientiousness, attitude, character, and

flexibility). 2) Professional skills (organization

skills, leadership ability, analytic skills, team-

oriented, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving).

3) Business knowledge (business concepts, business

process knowledge, and organization knowledge). 4)

Technical knowledge (enterprise systems,

development methods, application software, project

management, production data management,

architecture, infrastructure, programming, security &

control, business intelligence, and communication

networks). Practicing these competences is typically

at the core of IT software development capstone

projects’ learning targets.

Reifenberg and Long (2017) wrote that students

value the capstone experience. Based on Dondlinger

and McLeod (2015) and Dondlinger and Wilson

(2012) the capstone experience include challenges,

but still the main approach has been favourable. The

students reported to gain vital skills and

competences, such as, learning new skills when

applying prior knowledge; cultural understanding

and new appreciation for people within their own

culture; interaction and negotiation skills; and self-

awareness (Dondlinger (2012). At the same time,

Reifenberg and Long (2017) wrote of the capstone

challenges, such as mismatch of expectations,

information gaps, misunderstandings and challenges

in cooperation among the capstone project team

members.

In literature, it has been identified that one of the

main challenges in capstone type of course

assessment has been the tendency to focus primarily

on written or product outcome (Todd et al., 1995;

Jawitz et al., 2002; Lawson et al. 2014). This same

challenge remains although it has been recognized

that the main assessment criteria should be focused

on skills developed during the project, such as

teamwork, communication, life-long learning, and

technical skills. Therefore, the final software coding

outcome should not determine the passing grade for

the course. Even if the coded software does not

work, the team can still pass the course if they have

achieved the planned learning targets. The capstone

course teachers can use a variety of tools and

practices to get insight into capstone teams

activities, such as self and peer-evaluation, process

and product assessments, formative and summative

assessments, and students’ course-diaries/blogs

(Mills, 2007; Bramhal et al., 2012); Gardner and

Willey, 2012, Lawson et al. 2014).

Capstone projects can also provide students a

valuable opportunity to be exposed to diversity

already during their studies when the students

operate in a multi-national and multi-cultural

situation. During the capstone project

implementation the team members have to take into

account member’s national culture impact upon the

whole team (Duran and Popescu, 2014). Morkos et

Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course

al. (2014) conducted a comparative study between

domestic and international students. They found that

quite often the domestic students took the leading

position, and the teams had to overcome the

frustrating situations caused by cultural and

language barriers by improving their communication

and interaction skills. Morkos et al. (2014) pointed

that the students may not immediately recognize the

lessons they learned from the multicultural situation.

The recognition of diversity related lessons happens

afterwards.

3 CAPSTONE COURSE

IMPLEMENTATION

3.1 Software Engineering Capstone

Course – Targets and Preparations

The software engineering capstone course is a

mandatory course in the master level IT studies at

the University of Turku. To provide it as a

compulsory unit, timely linked to the degree

program, and including all the degree program

students, it has been organised formally as a

traditional course in the teaching program. The

course needs to have a clear structure, but at the

same time it is important that the teachers only

facilitate the students’ learning, and the implemented

activities are managed by the students themselves to

achieve the expected learning outcomes.

The courses take three academic periods, about

nine months, and the course is structured with

regular predefined classroom activities (e.g., status

reports, pitching, demonstrations). The focus of the

capstone course is on designing and implementing a

proof-of-concept level solution to a fairly complex

real-world problem via practical test and try

approach. The idea is to provide a situation that

simulates various aspects from working life

phenomena in a safe environment that also allows

failures. Sometimes learning from failures can be a

better learning experience than learning from

success. Based on our observation, teams that face

failures during their project often analyse, identify

root causes for their situation and actions, and they

even are able to take the needed corrective actions.

Analysing the causes behind failures during a

common class activity provides a viewpoint for

students in other teams of these critical project

factors.

Capstone project utilizes both PBL and POPBL

methods and some elements from Problem-Solving

Learning (PSL). As Sotto (2007) highlights, it is

better that the students are quickly able to practice

their knowledge and skills instead of spending

significant amount of time to understand the

problem. In this course, the intended learning

outcomes (ILOs) focus on team working,

communication and problem-solving skills. The

students practice those skills with preselected project

topics stretching out of their comfort zone. The

teachers spend a significant amount of time to

discuss with potential topic owners and prepare the

project topics beforehand. The main idea of the

capstone course is to provide open-ended problems

to students. The topic owners need to accept that

they cannot give exact solution requirements to be

implemented. Instead, they get a proposal for their

problem from the students, often in a form of a

working proof-of-concept.

3.1.1 Attendance

The practice is that students enrol to the course

beforehand. That way the teachers are able to

evaluate the students’ current level of studies. If the

student does not fulfil the requirements (i.e. being

master level students), the teachers can inform them

to attend the needed courses prior taking the

capstone project on coming semesters.

The full attendance is mandatory, but the demand

for 100% presence is adjusted, because students can

have situations when they cannot attend (e.g.

doctor’s appointments). During every lecture, the

attendance is recorded with signature on the student

list. That way the teachers can follow-up the

attendance (which is one aspect of course

evaluation) and also show that teachers care for

students’ presence. In case of a student missing

multiple compulsory sessions, the student needs to

agree on activities to compensate for their absence.

This kind of social contracts are linked with

professionalism (Vu, 2014) and applying those

between teachers and students is good practice for

working life. That way the students can practice the

impact (positive or negative) of unspoken norms and

rules.

One of the challenges in organising this course is

timing. Typically, the Fudan students spend one

academic semester, about six months in Finland.

Still, the course takes longer, about nine months.

This means that the teams built of students from

both universities need to find ways to continue and

finalize work even when located in two continents.

At the early stage of capstone course

implementation, it was found that the Fudan students

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

considered their course related activities ended when

they returned back to China and then the Finnish

students alone had to finalize the project work.

However, during the past few iterations this scheme

of thinking has gradually been changed by planning

and placing common course activities to the final

stage of the project. Also holiday seasons of two

cultures impact on the course. For example, the

course that starts around January will be finalized

around October. This means a summer break in the

middle of the course in Finland, and Chinese

National Day break in early Fall.

3.1.2 Lectures

The main teaching approach during the capstone

project course is on active learning activities.

However, due to the high amount of students (35-50

students) some traditional type of lecturing is also

included to activate the students in the classroom to

further process the topic inside their project teams.

Every lecture focuses on a different topic related to

the common stage of the projects by providing a

short introduction to the students. The idea is to give

“mental hooks” for directing their focus on digesting

new topics and activities. The capstone course

lectures include two parts. One part focuses on

project management and communication specific

skills. The second part focuses on team work and

interaction skills. These lectures and hands-on

practices provide the basic knowledge for the

students to apply in their project team.

The course utilizes Moodle online tool to share

and communicate course related materials. The

materials are created by teachers, and there are no

specific textbooks to be used during the course. This

also encourages students to be active and write their

own notes. Earlier research has shown that when

students make their own notes, they internalize the

topic better (Mueller and Oppenheimer, 2014).

Earlier research indicate that slides can make

students passive listeners or they focus on other

activities (such as, Facebook, WhatsApp messaging,

etc.) as they do not bother to make their own notes.

During the series of lectures the students will

give several presentations, such as status reports,

project plans and project pitch. The students get

assignments during lectures to work independently

and then during the next lecture they present the

outcomes. Every lecture has a slightly different topic

or focus to keep students motivated to work around

the project with clear focus areas and deadlines.

Although, based on observations, it has been noticed

that many of the students are not motivated to listen

other teams’ presentations.

3.1.3 Student Groups and Selection of

Group Members

Based on experience gained from several capstone

course iterations, it has been found that team

dynamics can be a core element of success or a

serious hindering effect. Since student self-

motivation is expected to be one fundamental

element to successfully meet numerous project

challenges, students are asked to choose their

preferred topics with a motivation letter. At the

beginning of the capstone course, teachers will

present the project topics to the students. The

students can choose three most interesting topics

which they would like to participate in. Based on the

motivation letters the teachers will form the groups.

It can also mean that the students may not be

assigned with the topic they primarily preferred. The

teachers spend quite a lot of time to form the groups

by reviewing students’ prior courses and interests to

ensure diversity and the needed skills to succeed.

As the course participants consist of students

both from the University of Turku and the Fudan

University (China), the teachers ensure that every

team is multinational. That way it can also be

ensured that the teams practice their English

language skills during their project work. At the

same time, the students also learn to interact with

people from different cultures and with way-of-

working habits.

Since team working skills are in the core of

intended learning outcomes of the course, the team

size is normally aimed for minimum of four or five,

but can reach up to eight students. However, larger

team size can more easily include “free-riding” type

of behaviour. In a smaller team members tend to

take bigger responsibility for ensuring the overall

success and they also support each other around the

tasks and competences. In larger teams the division

of work and responsibilities requires more attention

from teachers.

Quite a lot of the students have working life

background or they are even already working in

industry. Having prior working life experience can

help to excel in capstone projects and reach even

more demanding goals, via deeper understanding of

what they need to do and what is required from

them. In other words, the students are able to fill the

knowledge gaps of teachers’ presentations with their

own practical experience knowledge.

Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course

3.2 Project Activities and Course

Assessment

3.2.1 Topic Owner Interaction and Project

Budget

All of the project teams have an external project

topic owner, who is not a teacher on the course. The

students interact with the topic owner, often seen as

their customer, collect requirements and later present

their solution proposal. Ideally the topic owner is an

external/industry representative, but also some of the

research groups from the University of Turku have

been in this role. It is also to be noted that the teams

have a very small budget that can limit their

activities.

3.2.2 Project Implementation

The project team assigns different roles to its

members during the project activities. One of the

key roles is that team leader, who usually is also

responsible for customer communication. The idea is

to learn to manage communication between the team

and its project stakeholders.

Project planning is an important phase, because it

shows how well and to what depth students have

understood the problem and the requirements. The

idea is to revise the project plan several times during

the capstone course. The first plan is the first best

guess, but the main lesson is that the project plan

needs to be updated and re-estimated regularly. The

idea is also to practice how to divide a complex

tasks into smaller implementable entities. That way

the students also practice how to schedule activities

and what is the impact if they do not take the

responsibility or ownership of implementing the

tasks. Based on our observations we have identified

ownership of the activities to be the most relevant

success factor. If the students feel the ownership of

the project, they are also willing to invest time and

effort to the outcome and interaction.

The project teams also meet regularly with the

teachers to discuss the details of their project. These

sessions provide a tool for the teachers to assess the

dynamics of interaction in the team and their

potential need for support or advice to improve the

situation.

3.2.3 Course Assessment

From teachers’ perspective, assessing the student

and team performance can contain challenges. Due

to the nature of the initial open ended problems,

teachers cannot give grades only based on the level

of technical outcome. Sometimes the students are

not able to finalize their plans or they do not have a

tangible result to present as a final outcome. Still,

they may have achieved the intended learning

outcomes.

The course does not have any summative exam.

Instead, the teachers use different kinds of materials,

tools and practices to get insight into the students’

performance among their team members. One of the

main evaluation aspects include participation and

activeness, observations during the lectures and

individual group sessions. The main materials are:

project plans, status reports, pitching sessions. In

addition, students have to write a personal work

diary where they describe the amount of hours and

activities they have done for the project. The

students also answer to the course feedback survey

where they conduct self-assessment and peer-

assessment.

3.3 Technologies and Tools Supporting

Learning Outcomes

As the teams are allowed and expected to organise

themselves, they also have freedom in choosing the

tools they use. Each team is required to keep a

project repository to store their digital outcomes, and

teachers are given access to it. Each team presents

their choice of tools in their presentations in order to

share experience and provide best practices within

the course.

Used tools include common file sharing tools,

such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., task boards

like Trello, distributed version control systems like

Git. These tools are used regardless of the

technologies related to building the actual project

result.

Technologies experimented in building the

project outcomes have included various sensor

technologies, app and web development frameworks

and flexible computing platforms specially designed

for learning purposes, such as Raspberry Pi.

4 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

4.1 Students’ Feedback Analysis

To evaluate how the course succeeds in guiding

students to the intended learning outcomes we

analysed the student feedback collected after the

capstone courses. The focus in this study was to

analyse if the students report development in skills

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

related to the course intended learning outcomes.

The student feedback is collected by using online

survey tool after the course. At the beginning of the

capstone course, the assessment process including

self and peer-evaluations was introduced to the

students. After the course the students self-evaluated

their own participation and contribution to their

project. They also provide an evaluation for each of

their team members. These self-reflected evaluations

provide to teachers an insight into the team’s

operation and how the work load was balanced

among the team members.

The students identified technical skills as

essential to succeed in a capstone project. Three

examples from the student feedback: “Technical

support is really necessary”, “The biggest problem

was to do software project without actual

programmers” and “We are all expected to

understand and implement software programs. This

was a huge issue in my group”. Based on the

feedback material it was possible to identify that

technical aspects could be seen as potential

discipline knowledge gaps and were one of root

causes to teams’ challenges.

The students identified various technical topics

(Table 1) as development areas to better succeed in

capstone project activities. Also the students’ self-

evaluation of their prior technical skills indicated

that many students did not have the needed technical

skills to excel in their capstone project (Figure 1).

Table 1: Students’ self-identified areas for developing

their technical skills.

Algorithms and analytical skills:

- Algorithm and algorithm analysis

- Mathematical modeling

- Learning analytics

- Data-analytics

Programming:

- C/C++

- Java courses

- Object-oriented programming courses

- Web programming

- Python programming

Networks and Databases:

- Network knowledge

- Database technologies

- Network and Operation systems

Other technical skills:

- Cloud computing

- Software and HTML design

- Graphical design

- Robotics

- Geographical information systems and developing

geo-informatics software

- IoT devices

- App development (Android or iOS)

- Version control

Figure 1: Sufficient technical skills to succeed in a

capstone project.

The new situation in which the students

independently managed their capstone project and

its activities caused question marks for some

students. In typical approach teachers give more

exact tasks and activities to be performed. However,

the capstone project learning target is to practice

team skills, take active responsibility on both

defining and implementing project tasks, and the

accountability remains on the student side.

Based on the feedback results some of the

students expected more strict supervision and

guidance from the teachers: “I had a feeling

throughout the course that there should have been

more supervision that the team members were doing

their job”, “I wish we can get more supervision in

the course, because our team was confused

sometimes”, and “Provide more detailed directions

and motivating or pushing teams to start the project

activities”. Yet, some of the students recognized that

the supervision should come from inside the team,

such as to be conducted by the project manager/

leader: “There should have been more supervision

that the team members were doing their job.

However I think this should be something that is the

responsibility of the project manager not the person

managing the course. Maybe this should be

emphasized more when talking about the role of the

project manager”. Some students also proposed to

have a teaching assistant who would focus on

supporting a specific team: “I hope each project

team can have one assistant teacher who is familiar

with the project so that we can get the necessary

help”.

Also motivation and interaction aspects caused

some concerns. One of the key success factors to

succeed in capstone project is student’s own

motivation. If a student does not have the needed

motivation, it can affect the rest of the team. Few

examples from the student feedback: “Kick out

Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course

unskilled and unmotivated students”, “Capstone

required a lot of motivation and hard work. Students

of IT department are not usually very eager to make

suggestions nor working without someone pushing

them forward.” Some even proposed direct

approaches to deal with unmotivated or non-

participative team members who negatively

impacted on their team working: “I can only come

up with two ways to improve motivation towards

team working: either punishing students for not

doing anything relevant or encouraging them to

improve their teamwork skills”.

The interaction and experience sharing with the

fellow capstone teams could provide opportunities to

learn and cooperate. Sharing situations and

challenges could provide a new kind of reflection

window to team working: “I would have some

interaction session with other groups on how they

are managing the project, what difficulties they are

facing and what went so well, are we facing the

similar kind of situations? This way we could figure

out the common problems and complete the project

better”. The communication between the different

capstone project teams was very little and limited to

the common all-class sessions. The interest to work

together with other teams was identified: “I hope we

could have an open working atmosphere to

exchange ideas and solutions with other teams”.

Based on the student feedback, the majority of

the students reported skill improvements or they

learned new technical or project management skills

during their capstone project (Figure 2). As an

example, the students reported: “I got valuable

information on project management and leadership

and got to practice my presentation skills”. “It is the

first formal project course I have ever taken and

most of the skills needed are new for me. So I have

learned new things which makes me feel happy”.

Some students also identified that the capstone

project was an opportunity to practice the skills and

knowledge gained during the several years of

studies: “I believe the whole idea of a Capstone

project is to employ the skills and competences

learned in school and working life”. The students

identified team working skills as an outcome of the

capstone project: “I liked the practical teamwork

approach for common problems that required

learning new skills and problem solving with

different types of people. An eye-opening

experience”.

The capstone project also provided an

opportunity to learn new knowledge in another

subject and thereby expanding the students’ skills

and working life capabilities.

4.2 Analysis and Recommendations for

Further Course Development

Based on the student feedback, teachers’

observations and hands-on experience, the following

focus areas and recommendations for further

development were identified.

Clarify the goals of capstone project experience.

At the beginning of the capstone course, it is

important to highlight to the students the opportunity

to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in their

studies and extend their academic experience by

thinking critically and creatively during their

capstone project. The capstone project provides a

safe environment and an opportunity to demonstrate

their proficiency in various areas and thus can be

used as an asset on job markets.

Figure 2: Students’ self-evaluation of their skill development after the Capstone course.

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

Highlighting the importance of student

commitment to the project and the team. Students’

commitment has a key role in the success of a

capstone project. This course is quite unique in

making the students mainly responsible for their

activities, schedules, team work practices,

atmosphere, and deliverables. The teacher provides

support, but the students have to take the initiative to

raise the need for support and guidance. Still, some

students try to push the responsibility back on

teachers and stay passive waiting for more

instructions. During the recent iterations of the

capstone course the expectation for the students

active role has been discussed more both at all-class

sessions and when teacher meets individual teams.

More communication and educating the learning

method at the beginning of the course needs to be

highlighted.

More focus on technical studies. The students

need to gain the basic technical knowledge in their

pre-capstone studies. Capstone project provides a

tool for students to conduct self-evaluation of their

current professional skills. For the university the

success level of capstone project gives input for

planning how to teach these skills at right, early-

enough points in curriculum.

Interaction between the capstone teams. A more

low-profile interaction between teams could enable

sharing and reflecting team challenges without the

pressure of presenting the case to the entire class.

Topics and situations encountered in capstone

projects could be discussed in small groups being a

mixture of several capstone teams. The groups

would share a summary of their discussion and

reflected viewpoints.

Having assistant teachers and technical support.

Quite many of the students experienced challenges

with technical aspects during their project. Due to

budget limitations, various practical exercises on

earlier courses have been reduced (Majanoja et al.,

2017). In the project students may also operate with

technologies they are not familiar with and they

need more technical support. Therefore, it is

recommendable to have more resources for technical

support and course assistants to support the capstone

teams.

Expanding the course together with other

faculties. While the majority of the students on past

capstone project teams have been students of IT,

providing a viable solution to most project topics

could have benefitted from an interdisciplinary team.

Engaging other subjects and faculties on IT focused

projects could provide opportunities. To succeed, the

project topics should systematically be developed

together with other faculties. Linking IT and

business students is a realized approach (e.g.

Kruchten et al., 2011). In a multidisciplinary

university such as University of Turku, several

disciplines could ideally be involved.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of a capstone project is to provide students

a safe environment to practice their current

knowledge and abilities, such as knowledge of

discipline or content area and diversity including

cultures, perspectives and belief systems. The target

of the capstone project is also to strengthen students’

ability to think critically, communicate efficiently

and use various technologies. In addition, the

capstone project provides a lesson about

commitment towards social responsibilities,

leadership, providing service to others, and how the

lack of commitment affects the whole project team.

This study set out with the aim of reflecting on

arrangements of capstone projects in University of

Turku, Department of Information Technology, and

to provide recommendations for developing the

course and supporting curriculum. To form our

recommendation the students’ feedback was

analysed and conclusion reflected against teachers’

observations.

Based on the analysis it was identified that

technical aspects cause significant challenges. Quite

many of the challenges culminate around the

students’ lack of programming skills and the

capstone course currently as such does not have the

resources to provide detailed technical guidance in

all team specific issues. Therefore, more focus

should be given on strengthening students’ technical

skills before joining the capstone course.

The results of this study also indicate students’

challenges to perceive their student-led role being in

charge of all of the activities instead of following the

traditional teacher-led approach. The change from

rather passive receiver to active doer can be

challenging. Students’ prior working life experience

has a positive effect on the whole team. Those teams

are found to achieve deeper understanding of what

they are required to do and more effectively fill the

knowledge gaps with their practical experience.

We acknowledge the limitations of this study as

the results come from only one university. At the

same time, however, the results are well aligned

with the existing capstone research and discourse.

Future research should investigate the impact of

students’ prior working life experience on

Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course

performance at the capstone project. Another

research topic would be to analyse the relevance of

the capstone project as a self-assessment tool for

students’ working life capabilities.

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Reﬂections on Teaching Software Engineering Capstone Course