Diversity and Teamwork in Student Software Teams

Diversity is becoming an increasingly relevant topic in computer science, especially software development. Since software develop- ment is concerned with human and social processes, there is an agreement that a higher diversity rate in professional software teams positively influences communication, innovation, and per- formance. However, there is a lack of understanding of the impact of diversity in software development teams at an educational level to identify potential challenges and opportunities that might affect later professional stages. In this paper, we investigate the impact of diversity on key teamwork skills such as communication, collab- oration, and productivity in student software development teams. Therefore, we conducted several surveys on project work progress in an introductory software engineering course with students and their tutors regarding these teamwork metrics. We link these self- assessments and the project outcome to seven aspects of diversity. Our results show correlations between teamwork satisfaction and team diversity. Considering the changes in teamwork over the project timeline, we identified deteriorations in certain teamwork metrics—independent of the team diversity. These findings serve to enhance understanding and improvement of students’ team- work for students and educators. In particular, it is essential in software development courses at an undergraduate level to support our future software engineers to keep them motivated and decrease possible frustrations regarding teamwork.