Evaluating role playing efficiency to teach requirements engineering

Weak requirements engineering can lead to the failure of software projects, unstable software products and unclear designation of responsibilities in software projects. Requirements engineering education is essential for preparing students for the real world of software engineering, especially the proper handling of requirements. Students should be able to elicit, analyze, specify, and validate known and unknown requirements from stakeholders with different backgrounds. Role playing has been suggested by many researchers as a pedagogical technique for teaching requirements engineering efficiently. However, there is hardly any empirical evaluation demonstrating its efficiency. The objective of this study is to assess the use of role playing and role reversal in an intensive requirements engineering course. This paper reports our experience teaching requirements engineering courses using role playing for four sessions of two hours each. The results demonstrate the efficiency of role playing as a tool for teaching requirements engineering over short durations, and for creating student engagement during the course.