Application of Project-Based Learning to a Software Engineering course in a hybrid class environment

Context: This paper centers on Project-Based Learning (PBL). In PBL, the student is now the center of the whole teaching and learning process, while the instructor's role is now of a facilitator presenting to the students the resources and guidance to solve the given problem. Most existing studies, apply PBL to courses having in-person students.<br />Objective: The paper presents the application of a PBL approach to a Software Engineering (SE) course having a hybrid class environment (i.e., online and in-person students). The main objective of this paper is to analyze the students' attitudes after experiencing working on a real-life problem as part of our PBL approach in a hybrid class environment.Methods: We propose a relaxed plan-based software development model as basis for guiding the project execution. At the end of the course, we applied a survey to the students to evaluate their experience in the course.Results: We obtained the answers of 70.8% of students taking a SE course. With these answers, we could measure the students' perception of using PBL in a SE course and how this strategy helped them to gain soft and hard skills in software development. We divided the answers for their analysis into different categories: soft skills, technical skills, learning experience, and other results. Moreover, we compare the performance of the teams and students based on their type (i.e., online and in-person).Conclusion: We found qualitative differences in the experience of online and in-person students. Based on our experience with this study, we provide guidelines for applying PBL in a hybrid environment. Overall, our study has demonstrated a positive contribution in supporting teaching SE using a PBL in a hybrid class environment.