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|title=Research on Intercultural Teaching for RE - Proposal for a Multi Case Study
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1217/paper5.pdf
|volume=Vol-1217
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==Research on Intercultural Teaching for RE - Proposal for a Multi Case Study==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1217/paper5.pdf
Research on Intercultural Teaching for RE
Proposal for a Multi Case Study
Andrea Herrmann Anne Hoffmann
Herrmann & Ehrlich Software Engineering Institute
Stuttgart, Germany Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
herrmann@herrmann-ehrlich.de Groningen, The Netherlands
a.hoffmann@rug.nl
Rüdiger Weißbach
Business Department
Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW Hamburg)
Hamburg, Germany
ruediger.weissbach@haw-hamburg.de
Abstract—Intercultural aspects are important aspects in assumptions that are not shared by the others because it is not
software engineering in teaching as well as in practice. In the part of their cultural background. This includes
requirements engineering context, these topics are not so well misunderstandings about the meaning of software requirements
addressed by research, and if they are, then in the meaning of and about work processes, and finally leads to software that
national cultures. We expect that, besides this, the diverse
does not conform to what the stakeholders really wanted. This
“professional cultures” of the participants in the requirements
engineering process are an equally important aspect. causes re-work, suboptimal project results and also negative
This paper provides a first proposal for a research emotions among the parties.
collaboration on intercultural aspects in requirements Despite this importance of culture for RE, we find only
engineering teaching. We are searching partners for this study. little research on the intercultural differences in RE training.
Index Terms Intercultural, interdisciplinary, research outline—. There are approaches to teach such socio-technical aspects
A. Introduction and Motivation within the RE education [8], [15], [29] , but research on the
different training needs in different cultures is missing. A
Software engineering (SE) is a multi-step transformation of training concept which works well in one cultural context
ideas into artifacts. In this process, Requirements Engineering might work less well in another context. In our definition,
(RE) is the first step, in which the ideas of the future users or “culture” is not limited to national cultures, but also refers to
their representatives (managers etc.) will be transformed in a professional and organizational cultures. In addition,
more or less formalized representation. Not all participants in differences between different learning contexts like university
this process are trained or experienced in methods of teaching, a workshop at a conference, or an in-house training in
formalization (modeling, developing of algorithms etc.). The a company are considered different cultures.
teaching of RE deals with methods of elicitation, To investigate such differences is important because the
documentation and validation (see for instance the syllabus of quality of RE is known to be critical for the success of software
the IREB Foundation Level [20]). The important intercultural projects [25]. This emphasizes the importance of the education
aspects, however, are regularly not treated. of software practitioners [21] – regardless of whether RE is
In the research on SE, we find studies about intercultural conducted in a formal RE process in heavyweight software
aspects in international cooperation (e.g. [22],[28]), enforced development processes or conducted in a less formal way in
by the trend to international software development outsourcing, agile processes. We plan a study which will test the hypothesis
for example to India/Bangalore or Russia. These studies partly that there are differences between learners from different
emphasize the aspects of different national cultures that cultures in terms of the learning succcess achieved or fun
influence the handling of requirements, for example in the experienced. Depending on culture, some training concepts
aspect of the non-critical acceptance of the requirement might work well in one culture and less in another.
documents, even if they contain unrealistic requirements. This paper presents an initial outline for setting up a
Cultural differences are listed as one of many sources of research study that is open for interested colleagues – teachers,
challenges in distributed development, e.g. in [5], [10], [11], trainers and researchers. During the REET workshop, we want
[12], [23]. Cultural differences lead to misunderstandings that to receive feedback concerning the planned study and its
happen when the communicating parties make tacit internationalization. Moreover, REET gives us a unique
opportunity to meet and discuss with potential cooperation There is not as much literature on professional cultures as
partners especially outside Europe. on national or organizational cultures. Herkenhoff measures
differences between professional cultures using the Hofstede
dimensions [13]. She points out the relationship between the
B. Definition: Culture
professional cultures and the national cultures: “Just as
The term “culture” is understood differently. According to Hofstede notes that national culture is not genetically shared
Hofstede [16], culture is characterized by six factors: but is passed down between groups, the same holds true for
Power distance, Individualism vs. collectivism, Uncertainty professional culture.” [13] One aspect for example is the long-
avoidance index, Masculinity, Long-term orientation vs. short term vs. short-term orientation of professions [2]. In this
term orientation, Indulgence versus restraint [16]. dimension, computer programmers and other people engaged
Hofstede defines culture as “the collective programming of in project work may be short-term focused.
the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category Herkenhoff [13] developed a Professional Culture
of people from another” [17]. However, we also (at least questionnaire (PC08) based on Hofstede/Bond as a tool for
informally) talk about different cultures when talking about measuring along the dimensions of Power, Time, Risk, Service
cultures of companies, cultures in different professional and Team. In her study, she compares professional culture
disciplines, types of teaching environments (e.g. university rankings of people working in accounting, IT support, sales and
versus on-the job training), etc. In some disciplines, science. Referring to the five dimensions of professional
stereotyped archetypes of persons and their character behavior culture (Power, Time, Risk, Service, Team) IT staff shows high
exist. This is for instance reflected in the assumption all ranking values for team orientation and service, but only low
information scientists being bad communicators and bad team values for long term orientation.
workers, or in jokes that address the brevity of students in PC08 can be used as questionnaire for our study.
technical topics.
A previous study on communication problems in The remainder of this paper is structured as follows:
distributed software development has found cultural differences Section II summarizes the current situation in research on
not only between countries, but also between different intercultural aspects in RE. Section III sets up the research
organizational cultures, between younger and older people, and design for our multi case study research project. Section IV
between different professional cultures (like software discusses the research design and Section V summarizes the
developers versus managers or customers) [26]. Another study paper and the possible next steps.
within India showed that even within one country, one can find
large cultural differences [3].
II. LITERATURE ON INTERCULTURAL ASPECTS IN RE
1) Interculturality: International aspects TEACHING
Hofstede defines that “The category can refer to nations,
regions within or across nations, ethnicities, religions, In an initial literature research, we aimed at gathering the
occupations, organizations, or the genders.” [17] This basic definitions in our domain of research and to understand
dimension of interculturality is widely accepted and discussed the state of research, in order to help us design our study. A
in science and in practical work and trainings. more systematic literature analysis will be part of the study.
First of all, we searched for work about basic concepts
2) Interculturality: Organizational Cultures from outside the RE community (by Hofstede, Herkenhoff and
Organizational culture is – according to [24] – “the pattern others), especially on cultural aspects in work life.
of basic assumptions, that a given group has invented, We analyzed the publications of the workshop
discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems “Requirements Engineering in Education and Training
of external adaption and internal integration”. The (REET)”, expecting to find information and results close to
organizational culture focuses on the internal relationships in our questions, as the workshop’s theme is closest to our
an organization. The learning experiences of a company, its research topic. REET takes place in conjunction with the IEEE
strategy and its tradition are important aspects. Hofstede [19] conference Requirements Engineering (RE) since 2005. Our
lists the following dimensions of organizational culture: means- approach was as follows: We analyzed all existing REET
oriented vs. goal-oriented, internally driven vs. externally publications and their abstracts, screened the abstracts for key
driven, Easygoing work discipline vs. Strict work discipline, word such as “intercultural” or “interdisciplinary”, and
Local vs. Professional, Open system vs. Closed system, subsequently found three papers relevant for further
Employee-oriented vs. Work-oriented, Degree of acceptance of processing [6],[9],[27]. These papers, we read in depth.
leadership style, Degree of identification with your
organization. Beyond the REET publications, we gathered further work
These dimensions will affect the process of Requirements about cultural aspects in software engineering.
Engineering. Overhage, Skroch and Turowski [22] developed a method
to evaluate requirement specifications. In this context, they
3) Interculturality: Professional Cultures analyzed factors in the context of the requirement specification
process in offshoring projects. The understanding of the means national culture, but also professional cultures as
domains, aspects of communication and culture as well as discussed above and also differences between different learning
learning relationships had been indicated as relevant.. contexts like university teaching, a workshop at a conference,
Gotel et al. [9] conducted an experiment with students from an in-house training in a company.
USA, Cambodia, Thailand and India. Their task was to write a
requirements document, and the previous knowledge of the
C. Research Phases
participants was unevenly distributed. To cope with these
conditions, the trainers applied coaching and requirements The phases of the study are proposed as follows:
reviews. International aspects are not discussed, but rather the 1) Research Project Setup
students’ learning effects. We search for research partners outside Germany,
Svahnberg et al. [27] stated “a large difference between the especially also outside of Europe. These partners can be
priorities of Industry Managers and Industry Developers”. For university teachers, trainers and researchers. The final research
industry managers the aspects of product planning should have design will be a developed among all partners to incorporate
higher priority, for developers, development and test are the specific constraints.
most important. The authors see “a dichotomy between pre- 2) Extension of the literature research,
project activities and in-project activities, where the managers especially by a systematic collection of existing research
are more concerned with the pre-project activities and the results and teaching case studies
developers focus more on the in-project activities.” This means, 3) Preparation
the authors observed (role-dependent) different professional In order to control and align the conditions of the multiple
cultures. case studies, course material will be developed jointly and then
Gabrysiak et al. [6] worked with students from other translated in the necessary languages. The execution of the
faculties without a software engineering background as “virtual course unit will be discussed and optimized in detail. Such
stakeholders”, in order to introduce a semantic gap between course units can be role games, modeling exercises or
requirements engineer and stakeholders. This showed to be simulations of whole software engineering projects. We can
instructive for the RE students. The paper mainly discusses adapt exercises from our previous courses, and like this use
how to instruct the virtual stakeholders in order that they can be material that was used successfully in courses before.
authentic. Examples of such RE courses like role games we discussed in a
Bolten [1] suggests intercultural management games to previous publication [14].
train functional and professional aspects (p.17). The study will demand only simple tools and
Herrmann, Hoffmann, Landes, Weißbach [14] describe infrastructures, like office software, meta plans, white boards
training experiences from different settings with regard to the or a freeware UML tool.
Dreyfus levels [4]. In these trainings, different aspects of The courses’ main objective is to teach RE. Executing the
professional cultures have been emphasized: joint projects of experiment is secondary in importance. Therefore, the
IT and business students respectively of IT and business additional effort for the participants created by the research
professors demonstrate different professional demands, role must be minimized to a short questionnaire before the exercise
games and improvisation theatre demand and teach empathy to and after. A teaching evaluation often takes place in trainings,
people with different background. so this is no large extra effort for the participants.
4) Evaluation of courses
The same course concept (or concepts) will be used in
III. PROPOSAL FOR A MULTI CASE STUDY RESEARCH PROJECT different learning contexts and different countries.
A. Preliminary Research Questions Experiences from each execution (case study) will be
discussed in a telephone conference by all participating
The planned research will investigate the following
trainers, and course material will be optimized if necessary.
research question:
The learning context is described by the trainer in terms of
Are there differences in learning success and perception of
independent variables like the following: country, language in
learning success, depending on the participants’ culture and
which the training takes place, context (university, in-house
further participant characteristics, the learning context and the
training in a company, external training, workshop at a
trainer characteristics?
conference), group size, characteristics of the trainer (age,
teaching experience, work experience, Dreyfus level [4] ).
B. Research Approach In order to characterize the participants, data like the
The research study will investigate courses and Best following shall be gathered before the experiment: age and
Practices for RE training and teaching. However, what works work experience of the participants, their mother language and
well in one cultural context might work less well in another home country (where they spent their school time).
context. We will therefore experiment with different training Herkenhoff’s Professional Culture survey PC08 [13] is a base
formats in different cultural context and compare the results, for analyzing aspects of professional culture. Hofstede’s Values
like learning success by the participants, fun, and other Survey Module VSM 2013 [18] focusses on organizational
quantitative and qualitative criteria. “Culture” here not only culture. These surveys could be used in the evaluation of
aspects of professional and organizational culture. Further The proposed design project will not produce a “silver
variables are possible. bullet” for RE training, but considering the lack of research on
In order to measure the learning effect, the following data this topic, it will be a first step with impact on research as well
could be gathered before the course unit: previous knowledge as on RE training. The experiences of this first research stage
about what has to be learned, practical experience with what could be used for further international research projects on RE.
has to be learned, Dreyfus level, actual knowledge (measured And it can help trainers to choose and adapt trainings concepts
by a quick test). And after the course unit: actual knowledge to their audience.
(measured by another quick test) and Dreyfus level. Also, the With the Hofstede dimensions for international and
quality of the results of the course unit (e.g. models or organizational cultural aspects and the Herkenhoff dimensions
documents) shall be quantified. we use proven concepts and tools that allow a reference to
The course participants are also asked to comment on their other studies.
own learning success, the fun they had, what they think about Threats to validity: Even with the same training material,
the learning method, the type of exercise and the teacher´s the same exercise will be executed differently by different
teaching style – quantitatively on Likert scales and qualitatively trainers. Therefore, we need data from multiple executions of
as free text remarks [7]. the same course unit in the same culture, if possible by
5) Data Analysis different trainers.
It will be analyzed statistically whether there are differences
in learning success and perception of learning success,
depending on the learning context, the participant V. SUMMARY
characteristics and the trainer characteristics. This paper describes a proposal for an intercultural multi
We will test the hypothesis that there are differences case study research project for evaluating RE training courses
between learners from different cultures in terms of the in different cultural contexts and for discovering differences
dependent variables we measure, e.g. quality of the result between these cultures.
produced or fun experienced. Our next steps will be to find research partners and to refine
There will also be a qualitative analysis of the free text the research design together.
remarks of the participants.
6) Development of Best Practices
From our analysis results, best practices for teaching RE in
different cultures will be derived and summarized. As we look
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