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Do we even have a scientifically-backed set of essential biological or cognitive skills related to software engineering? I would probably start with [1] and [2

Do we even have a scientifically-backed set of essential biological or cognitive skills related to software engineering? I would probably start with [1] and [2]. Paper [3] concludes that sex-based differences in risk tolerance tangibly impacted approaches to spatial navigation AND program development. There's a few others on spatial cognition and mental information processing: [4][5][6]. Paper[5] in particular links spatial cognition to mental modeling, which was identified in [1] as a software engineering skill. And [6] directly connects it to navigating source code. [1]https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eafe/74dddaf7ada62a52a2e712c125e494e7aa1f.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/eafe/74dddaf7ada62a52a2e712... [2]https://web.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A17_Pea_Kurland_83.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/~roypea/RoyPDF%20folder/A17_Pea_Kur... [3]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4021352 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/4021352 [4]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360131519303008 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03601... [5]https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2006.00180.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2729.... [6]https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1268852 https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1268852

wsy 7y ago
[1] and [2] are not studies. [2] isn't even peer reviewed. [3] is behind a paywall. It appeared in the "2006 22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance", which is a pretty good indicator that this is not work done by social scientists, i.e., not scientifically backed. I have worked in science, the good papers appear in journals highly relevant for the topic. [4] and [5] are not about software engineering. [6] is also behind a paywall, and is based on a study with 24 students. As I can't access the full-text papers, what is the reported strength of the effect, i.e., if person A is x% better than person B in spatial recognition, how much better is A in software engineering? edit: here is a study presenting evidence that spatial skill differences in gender are not biological, see https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001. Without paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication/263916837_Strategy_Training_Eliminates_Sex_Differences_in_Spatial_Problem_Solving_in_a_STEM_Domain/links/546633130cf2f5eb180168d1/Strategy-Training-Eliminates-Sex-Differences-in-Spatial-Problem-Solving-in-a-STEM-Domain.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication...

wsy 7y ago

[1] and [2] are not studies. [2] isn't even peer reviewed. [3] is behind a paywall. It appeared in the "2006 22nd IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance", which is a pretty good indicator that this is not work done by social scientists, i.e., not scientifically backed. I have worked in science, the good papers appear in journals highly relevant for the topic. [4] and [5] are not about software engineering. [6] is also behind a paywall, and is based on a study with 24 students. As I can't access the full-text papers, what is the reported strength of the effect, i.e., if person A is x% better than person B in spatial recognition, how much better is A in software engineering? edit: here is a study presenting evidence that spatial skill differences in gender are not biological, see https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38414-001. Without paywall: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication/263916837_Strategy_Training_Eliminates_Sex_Differences_in_Spatial_Problem_Solving_in_a_STEM_Domain/links/546633130cf2f5eb180168d1/Strategy-Training-Eliminates-Sex-Differences-in-Spatial-Problem-Solving-in-a-STEM-Domain.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike_Stieff/publication...