The Perceived Effects of Introducing Coaching on the
Development of Student’s Soft Skills Managing Software
Quality
Azeem Ahmad, Kristian Sandahl, Aseel Berglund
Department of Computer Science, Linköping University, Sweden
Abstract
Technical abilities (also known as hard skills) are just as crucial as soft skills (such as communication,
cooperation, teamwork, etc.) in attaining professional success. Therefore it is important to pay much attention
to soft skills when developing the curriculum of engineering educations. Many elements can have a direct or
indirect impact on students’ soft skills, including course topic, course module (i.e., laboratories, seminars,
etc.), the medium of instruction, and learning activities. Many academics have investigated the development
of soft skills in a variety of disciplines, including engineering, science, and business. The purpose of this study
is to assess the perceived impact of coaching on the development of soft skills in MS and BS engineering
students. During four planned sessions over a six-month period, MS students acted as coachers, while BS
students received coaching from MS students. After each coaching session, all students were asked to complete
a survey to evaluate their perception for how their soft skills had developed. The results of the perceived
effects of introducing coaching activities are presented in this article. This article is a first step, in the series
of our investigation, in identifying the students’ perceptions about the development of soft skills. According
to the survey, the MS engineering students who were the coachers had perceived to improve most of their
soft skills. However, in the perception of BS students, their soft skills did not improve as compared to MS
students, prompting us to conduct additional research in the future to discover what hampered the growth of
BS students’ soft skills as well as how MS students’ soft skills were enhanced.
Keywords
coaching, soft skills, software engineering curriculum, coaching effect, soft skills development, software
engineering method, online teaching method
1. Introduction specific courses on engineering professionalism [6].
Spencer et. al [3] mentioned ”formal activities”
The major goal of academic courses is to address as one of the ways to develop soft skills, thus mo-
hard skills to meet market demands. Soft skills (i.e., tivating this study to use ”coaching activities” to
social, behavioral, and interpersonal) are not ade- investigate the effects on development of soft skills.
quately covered in academic courses, particularly Stettina et. al [7] concluded that ”coaching in teams
in software engineering education [1, 2]. A superior is shorter in nature and more appealing to the stu-
performer is a professional who possesses both tech- dents”.
nical and behavioral skills [3]. It wasn’t until 2009, The perceived impact of introducing coaching ac-
at the ’Leuven Communiqu’, that European Union tivities on the development of soft skills in Master
Ministries of Education introduced three new aims (MS) and BSc (BS) computer engineering students is
to higher education (i.e., social component, student evaluated in this study. The software quality course
employability, and life-long learning). In addition, is taken by MS students (i.e. seniors) to learn about
IEEE / ACM [4] and SWEBOK [5] have proposed how to improve software quality. Throughout the
incorporating various soft skills into the software course, MS students coach BS students who are
engineering curriculum. Soft skills may be devel- working on a real-time software project. MS stu-
oped in a variety of methods, including stand-alone dents coach BS students to discuss the improvement
projects [3], support programs [3], or introducing of the software being developed through coaching
meetings. We conducted a survey with MS and
Proceedings of 4th Software Engineering Education BS students after each meeting to assess the per-
Workshop (SEED 2021) co-located with APSEC 2021, ceived impact of the session on the development of
06-Dec, 2021, Taipei, Taiwan
soft skills. The survey is designed to answer the
" azeem.ahmad@liu.se (A. A. K. S. A. Berglund)
0000-0003-3049-1261 (A. A. K. S. A. Berglund) following research questions:
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use
permitted under Creative Commons License Attribu-
tion 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR
Workshop
http://ceur-ws.org
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-
ISSN 1613-0073
Proceedings
WS.org)
22
MS Meetings BS
RQ1: How do MS students perceive the effects
MS 1 BS 1
Meeting 1
of conducting coaching activities on their soft Std 1 MS1 meets/ coaches BS1, 2, 3, 12
Std 1
Std 2
Std 2 MS2 meets/coaches BS4, 5, 8 Two
skills development? Std 3 MS3 meets/coaches BS6, 10, 11 Representative
.
.
Std 4 MS4 meets/coaches BS7, 13, 14, 9
RQ2: How do BS students perceive the effect of Std 7
.
being coached on their soft skills development? MS 2
Std 5
Meeting 2
BS 2
MS1 meets/ coaches BS1, 2, 3, 12
Std 6 MS2 meets/coaches BS4, 5, 8 Std 8
Std 7 MS3 meets/coaches BS6, 10, 11 Std 9
Two
Std 8 MS4 meets/coaches BS7, 13, 14, 9 .
Representative
.
The ten soft skills that we focus on in the study .
MS 3 Meeting 3 Std 14
are: Collaboration, Communication, Creative think- Std 9 MS1 meets/ coaches BS1, 2, 3, 12
Std 10 MS2 meets/coaches BS4, 5, 8 ..
ing, Decision making, Giving clear feedback, Prob- Std 11
Std 12
MS3 meets/coaches BS6, 10, 11 ..
MS4 meets/coaches BS7, 13, 14, 9
lem solving, Presentation, Storytelling, Leadership, BS 14
Std 91
MS 4 Meeting 4
and Desire to learn. More information about study Std 13 MS1 meets/ coaches BS1, 2, 3, 12 Two
Std 92
.
Std 14 MS2 meets/coaches BS4, 5, 8 Representative
context, detailed soft skills, data collection, and Std 15 MS3 meets/coaches BS6, 10, 11
.
.
Std 16 MS4 meets/coaches BS7, 13, 14, 9
analysis is provided in Section 2. Std 98
Figure 1: Study Settings Presenting MS and BS Groups
2. Method and Meeting
2.1. Study Context & Settings
This research examines two courses taught at online1 . All students were informed about the meet-
Linköping University: Software Quality (6 credits - ing’s preparations, what to focus on/discuss during
MS) and Software Engineering - Bachelor Project the meeting, and the meeting’s conclusions. During
(15 credits - BS). The MS students learn about the each meeting, three teachers were present to answer
software quality concepts during the course through questions and monitor the dynamics of the group.
lectures, seminars, and labs. The BS students work
on bachelor projects to develop software products 2.2. Soft Skills
for external real-time clients from the academia or
industry with real requirements. MS students are This chapter outlines the list of soft skills which
responsible for coaching BS students on how to im- were assessed after each meeting in the survey for
prove the quality of the software system they are MS and BS students. The following ten soft skills
creating for the clients. The BS students had some have been identified as essential in the working life
preparation. They have about 1 credit in software of a software engineer by studies [1, 8, 9]
quality and about 1 credit in coaching.
As shown in Figure 1, the 16 MS students were 2.2.1. Collaboration
separated into four groups, MS 1 through MS 4.
Collaboration skills enable students to work effec-
Similarly, 98 students BS students were split into
tively with others to reach a common goal. They
14 groups called BS 1-14. Each MS group coached
include open communication, active listening, ad-
three to four BS groups as shown in Figure 1. There
mitting responsibility for mistakes, and appreciating
were four pre-arranged sessions (each lasting 90 min-
your teammates’ diversity.
utes) in which the BS group assigned two represen-
tatives to meet with the MS group. These two BS
group representatives were either team leaders or 2.2.2. Communication
quality engineers. These two representatives will It enable students to communicate themselves
receive coaching on the software product’s quality clearly and convincingly in both written and oral
characteristics and will subsequently teach their form. In addition, communication skills require
team members. Each meeting was split into two attentiveness and responsive listeners.
45-minute periods, allowing MS students to meet
with only two groups at a time, avoiding overcrowd- 2.2.3. Creative thinking
ing and ensuring adequate attention. The meetings
were conducted digitally. It refers to think critically, creatively, innovatively,
Students in the MS and BS programs received and analytically, as well as applying these abilities
explicit instructions on the learning goals of these to a variety of situations. Creative thinking refers
scheduled sessions. These instructions are available
1
https://www.ida.liu.se/ TDDE46/coaching/TDDD96-
TDDE46.pdf
23
the ability to detect and appraise complex circum- 2.3. Survey Details & Participants
stances, as well as make acceptable judgments.
An online survey was conducted by each student
after each meeting session with MS and BS students.
2.2.4. Decision making The survey was completed by 44 students in age
It is about making critical choices concerning the between 22 and 25 years: 16 MS students (4 females
progress of the software project.In addition, making and 12 males) and 28 BS students (8 females and 20
judgments on client deliverables and teamwork. males). During the course there was four meeting
resulting in a total of 164 replies. The survey’s
2.2.5. Giving clear feedback questions are listed below.
Giving clear feedback entails a number of factors: it Q1: What is your course code?
must be timely, consistent, actionable, substantial,
and offer ideas if necessary. Q2: What is your BS project/ MS group num-
ber?
2.2.6. Problem solving Q3: You are supposed to meet four times dur-
It helps in identifying the source of an issue and ing the course for coaching meetings.
devise a feasible solution. This skill is intended What meeting number is this?
to deal with difficult, unexpected, or complicated Q4: How many hours did you spend to prepare
issues that come up during or after meetings. this meeting?
2.2.7. Presentation Q5: Describe a challenge faced during the
meeting in simple words?
This skill refers about focusing on body language,
speaking performance, and visual display when giv- Q6: Rate the impact of coaching on your
ing an oral presentation. soft skills on Likert Scale (Improved,
Slightly Improved, Unchanged, Slightly
2.2.8. Storytelling Worse, Worse)
[S1:] Collaboration
The storytelling ability engages the audience. It is
about creating a compelling vision of where we are [S2:] Communication
and where we want to go, attracting others to join [S3:] Creative thinking
us on our journey in a manner that pure facts and
[S4:] Decision making
logic can’t.
[S5:] Giving clear feedback
2.2.9. Leadership [S6:] Problem solving
To mimic the real working environment, activities [S7:] Presentation
are led at each moment by a professionals in the [S8:] Storytelling
position of leader. This skill refers to arranging,
[S9:] Leadership
planning, and coordinating the tasks required to
meet specified goal. The leader is also in charge [S10:] Desire to learn
of providing the deliverable associated with each
activity.
3. Results
2.2.10. Desire to learn
The answers to the research questions are presented
This skill refers to demonstrating the desire to in this section. The findings are given with regard
learn through preparation before coming to meet- to each soft skill and the perceived influence of
ing, learning new technologies that can improve the coaching on it to enhance readability.
quality of the software product, and ask questions
during the meeting.
24
Collaboration Communication Creative thinking Decision making Desire to learn Giving clear feed−back Leadership Presentation Problem solving Storytelling
70%
66%
63% 63%
60 53%
56%
51% 50%
Coachers
46% 46%
43% 43%
40%
40 37% 38%
1
33% 34%
30%
26% 26%
21%
20 18%
6% 7% 8% 7%
4% 6% 6%
3%
0
Participant's reponses in Percentages
70% 70% 69% 69%
61% 61%
60 53% 53%
Coachers
46% 46% 46%
40 38% 38% 39%
2
30% 30% 30% 31%
23% 24%
20 17%
7% 8% 9% 7% 9% 7% 9%
0
70% 70%
62%
60% 60% 60%
60 53% 53% 54% 53%
Coachers
40% 40% 40% 40% 40%
40
3
33% 33%
30%
26%
20 12% 14% 13%
17%
13%
7% 7%
0
74%
70%
66% 66%
60 53%
Coachers
46% 46% 46% 46% 46% 46% 46% 46%
40% 40%
40
4
35% 34%
20% 20%
20 14%
16%
14% 14% 14%
8% 7% 6% 6% 6% 8%
0
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Figure 2: The perceived effect of coaching activities on the development of soft skills on MS students during meetings
3.1. Perceived Coaching Impact on Soft their collaboration skills were ’slightly improved’,
Skills of MS/BS students - RQ 1 & but this is a small percentage as compared to those
2 whose skills were ’unchanged’. Unfortunately, at the
first meeting, 6% percent of BS students rated their
3.1.1. Collaboration collaboration skills as slightly worse’. We speculate
that MS students were rigorously trained for the
MS students’ perceived that their collaboration
coaching activities and upcoming activities by the
skills have improved as a result of coaching activ-
instructors during lectures, seminars, and labs. MS
ities conducted within teams as well as with BS
students have planned these coaching meetings well
students, as illustrated in Figure 2. During the
in advance, thus leading to improved collaborations.
first meeting, 46% of students thought it was ’un-
On the other hand, BS students did not dedicate
changed’ and as time passed (i.e., during the next
enough time before coming to the meetings men-
three meetings), students felt it was ’slightly improv-
tioning it as a challenge (i.e., ’time for preparation’)
ing’ (i.e., approximately 70%). We can also observe
in Figure 4. Although we encouraged students to
that towards the end of the coaching activities, just
attend after the allocated hour, it was highlighted as
16% percent of MS students mentioned that collab-
one of the challenges in getting the most out of the
oration had remained ’unchanged’– a substantial
meeting. These findings can be supplemented with
decrease from 46% percent at the start as shown
a response to a fifth question concerning specific
in Figure 2. According to the survey results, coach-
challenges encountered by the students throughout
ing activities are perceived to have improved MS
the meeting. As shown in Figure 4, the word ’Time’
students’ cooperation skills. BS students, on the
repeated a lot as in ’time was short’ or ’little time’.
other hand, consistently perceived their collabora-
Unfortunately, we do not know if by time, they
tion skills as ’unchanged’ throughout the coaching
mean preparation time or meeting time.
sessions, keeping a score of about 68% as shown in
Figure 3. Although some students’ perceived that
25
Collaboration Communication Creative thinking Decision making Desire to learn Giving clear feed−back Leadership Presentation Problem solving Storytelling
86%
81% 81% 81%
75%
75 68% 68%
73%
62%
56%
Coachee
50
1
38%
32%
26%
25 18%
21%
18%
13%
6% 6% 6% 6% 8% 6% 8% 6% 6% 7% 6% 6% 7% 7% 6% 6%
0
Participant's reponses in Percentages
81%
75 69% 68%
72% 72% 72%
63% 63%
Coachee
50% 50% 50%
50 45%
2
37% 37%
31% 32%
28% 28% 28%
25 19%
5%
0
80%
76%
75 73% 73%
69% 69%
65%
61% 61%
Coachee
50%
50
3
39%
35% 35% 34%
26%
25 20% 19%
23% 24%
20%
15%
7% 8% 8%
5% 5%
0
77%
75 66%
74% 74%
62% 62% 62% 62%
Coachee
52% 51%
50
4
40% 40%
34% 34% 33% 33%
29%
26% 26%
25 18%
8% 8% 9%
4% 5% 5% 5%
0
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Improved
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Slightly Worse
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Unchanged
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Worse
Figure 3: The perceived effect of receiving coaching on the development of soft skills on BS students during meetings
3.1.2. Communication improve creating thinking by providing them a com-
plete and detailed agenda2 . One the contrary, in
Many MS students have perceived their communi-
the perception of BS students, the percentage was
cation skills either ’improved’ or ’slightly improved’
decreased from meeting 1 (81%) to meeting 4 (66%)
during coaching sessions. Between session 1 and
as shown in Figure 3.
4, students who considered it ’unchanged’ were
dropped from 43% to 20%. Almost half of the
students perceived their communication skill either 3.1.4. Decision making
’improved’ or ’slightly improved’. However, The sim- Decision making ability of MS students were per-
ilar percentage of the BS students felt that their ceived to be increased between coaching sessions
communication skill is ’’unchanged’ during or after from 30% (i.e., combining ’slightly improved’ and
coaching session. This trend is similar to what we ’improved’) to 53%. We can clearly see in Figure 2
observed with the collaboration skill. 6% students, that students who felt their decision making ability
similar to collaboration skill, considered it ’slightly as ’unchanged’ were dropped from 70% to 46% be-
worst’ during the first meeting. We observed a sim- tween meeting 1 and 4. Decision making ability of
ilar ratio 60:40 within BS students (i.e., Figure 3) BS students were also perceive to be improved little
between ’slightly improved’ and ’unchanged’. from 32% in meeting 1 to 48% in meeting 4, while
maintaining a same percentage of approximately
3.1.3. Creative thinking 57% with ’unchanged’. MS and BS students were
given several opportunity to make decision on meet-
Student’s opinion was divided on creative thinking
ing dates, agendas, topic matter, and deliverables,
skill as we can see in Figure 2 that MS students rang-
which influenced their decision-making abilities.
ing between 40%-46% perceived it as ’unchanged’.
Similar percentage of students perceived it ’slightly
proved’. One of the perceived reason is that we 2
https://www.ida.liu.se/ TDDE46/coaching/TDDD96-
have not provided enough freedom to students to TDDE46.pdf
26
3.1.5. Desire to learn did not feel any change in their presentation skills
during the coaching activities.
MS students perceived coaching a factor to increase
their desire to learn as show in Figure 2 improv-
ing the percentage from 43% to 53% considering 3.1.9. Problem solving
it ’slightly improved’. For BS students, this is the Problem solving skills were perceived to be improved
skill where more students felt it ’unchanged’ during in MS students through coaching activities. Starting
all coaching sessions increasing the percentage from with 38% students during meeting 1, the percent-
68% (i.e., meeting 1) to 77% (i.e., meeting 4). age reached 61% (meeting 2 -3) and 54% (com-
bined score of improved and slightly improved). 6%
3.1.6. Giving clear feedback of those MS students who felt it ’slightly worse’
changed their opinion after few coaching sessions.
MS students perceived an improvement with re-
Only 8% BS students felt it as ’slightly improved’
spect to giving clear feedback. 74% MS students
whereas approximately 74% BS students considered
felt improvement in giving feedback during the last
it ’unchanged’.
session as compared to what they felt in the first
meeting (i.e., 26% for ’slightly improved’ and 18%
for ’improved’). During the first meeting, 6% of 3.1.10. Storytelling
MS students considered it ’slightly worse’ but it We can observe a consistent pattern in Figure 2
was perceived to be improved by the end of all where around 60-70% students perceived it ’un-
coaching sessions. Similar positive trend can be changed’ during all meetings whereas 30-34% per-
observed with BS students (i.e., Figure 3) where ceived it ’slightly improved’. Similar pattern was
86% mentioned it as ’unchanged’ but by the end of observed with BS students where 74-80% students
last session, the percentage dropped to 62% show- felt it ’unchanged’.
ing a little improvement. This is to be anticipated,
given that MS students were constantly reviewing
Answer to RQ1 & 2: Coaching activities were
BS’s deliveries and offering comments to help the
perceived to enhanced eight out of ten soft skills
procedures and products.
among MS students except for creative think-
ing and story telling, which were perceived to
3.1.7. Leadership be decreased slightly. As previously stated,
MS students’ leadership abilities were perceived to the rationale was that by giving specific meet-
be strengthened as a result of coaching exercises. ing agendas and prospective deliverable, they
63% students perceived it as ’unchanged’ in meeting were unintentionally restricting their creative
1 but the percentage dropped to 40% in meeting thinking and story telling abilities.
4. More students felt that their leadership skills Receiving coaching, on the other hand, were
was improving by the passage of time. Most of perceived to have no substantial influence on
the BS students were consistent in perceiving their the development of soft skills in BS students.
leadership skill as ’unchanged’ (i.e., around 70% For a greater percentage of BS students, the ma-
during all sessions). Coaching had relatively little jority of soft skills were perceived to remained
impact, in the perception of BS students, on their constant.
leadership abilities.
3.1.8. Presentation 4. Discussion
In the perception of MS students, coaching did not At the beginning of our research, we believed that
have an impact on improving the presentations skills. coaching activities had an equivalent influence in
By the end of coaching sessions, it is only 16 %/ the perception of MS and BS students. Surprisingly,
17% students who either felt that their presentation the majority of soft skills in the perception of BS
skills are improved ((i.e., 30% in meeting 1 to 46% students remained unchanged. During coaching ses-
in meeting 4) or stayed ’unchanged’ (i.e., 63% in sions, however, MS students perceived these skills
meeting 1 to 46% in meeting 4 ). MS student’s to be improved (i.e., aggregated score of ”improved’
presentation skills were perceived to be improved and ’slightly improved’). We plan to conduct in-
through coaching activities. Following a similar pat- terviews, as part of future work, with BS and MS
ter in other skills, a large parentage of BS students students to learn why their soft skills were ’un-
changed’ or, how they are improved. We speculate
27
study [10] conducted research aimed at understand-
ing the students’ problems when required to develop
soft skills. They concluded that most of the stu-
dents are aware of the importance of soft skills and
understand how to improve them.
Figure 4: Word map about the challenges faced by the
students during coaching meetings
6. Validity Threats
that MS students receive a weighted coaching mod- An internal validity threat could be that partici-
ule in the course that pushes them to prepare, study, pants did not understand the questions and its pur-
and produce the results, thus developing their soft pose correctly. We tried to reduce this by explaining
skills. The BS students knew that they would be all questions to all students during all sessions. The
requested to write about the cooperation in the main purpose of addressing construct validity is to
common part of the report. However, BS students capture as much as possible of the available informa-
discovered that this was not just words on a pa- tion to avoid all sorts of bias. We have eliminated
per; they had to redo their reports. There were no construct validity threat completely by conducting
credits for coaching part for BS students. survey with different participants. We have also
There are several factors that have an impact eliminated the researchers’ bias by involving all 3
on students’ soft skills, either enhancing or being researchers in the design of the questionnaire and
unchanged. For example, prior to the first coaching protocol.
meeting, BS students were unfamiliar with the idea
of software quality. Preparing for the meeting adds
more effort as well as new concepts that take time,
7. Future Work
effort, and attention. On the contrary, each idea We want to conduct one-on-one interviews with
utilized in the coaching meeting was fully addressed participants to learn more about their experiences,
with MS students throughout lectures, laboratories, difficulties, and expectations. Furthermore, we in-
and seminars. According to our observations, The tend to investigate why some of the soft skills were
difference in the perception of MS and BS is due perceived to be ’unchanged’. If soft skills were per-
to do’s and don’ts of the coaching. During sessions, ceived to be enhanced, identify how and why.
MS students began acting as instructors, clarifying
topics and giving BS students with clear and suffi-
cient solutions. Similarly, BS students expected MS 8. Conclusion
students to do their duties. On many occasions, we
need to explain to BS and MS students about what Soft skills must be developed among university grad-
coaching is and what should be the expectations. uates in the same way that hard skills were devel-
oped through a number of various courses and activ-
ities. Coaching activities are crucial and have a big
5. Related Work impact on soft skill development. We used MS and
BS students in this study to undertake coaching
Many researchers have investigated the activities activities, with MS students serving as coaches and
that can impact the development of soft skills in en- BS students receiving coaching. We conducted a
gineering. Morales et al. described their experiences survey and found that students who coached others
over a five-year period of carrying out activities in were perceived to improved their soft skills much
topics for the development of soft skills in the field more than BS students who were mentored. In the
of software engineering [1]. They highlighted the discussion and throughout the paper, we addressed
best practices that have enabled them to include several reasons for the perceived impacts of coach-
soft skills into new degree programmes suited to ing on BS students. However, we were unable to
Bologna. They employed Project Based Learning to identify the specific cause, leading us to conclude
assist students in acquiring the essential soft skills. that a new study is needed to completely compre-
Ahmad et al. [9] concluded that soft skills are in hend the perceived impact of coaching activities on
demand in the software sector, according to their BS students.
survey. They demonstrated a misunderstanding of
the importance of soft skills in an employee’s pro-
fessional competence and performance. Another
28
Acknowledgment International Joint Conference on Computer
Science and Software Engineering (JCSSE),
This work was conducted/supported at/by the 2015, pp. 184–189. doi:10.1109/JCSSE.2015.
Linköping University for the course Software Qual- 7219793.
ity. We extend our appreciation and thanks to the [9] F. Ahmed, L. F. Capretz, P. Campbell, Evalu-
Linköping University and students who participated ating the Demand for Soft Skills in Software
in this study. Development, IT Professional 14 (2012) 44–49.
doi:10.1109/MITP.2012.7, conference Name:
IT Professional.
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