Interdisciplinary collaboration
The research experiences of Dr Carolyn Mair
Dr Carolyn Mair joined Southampton Solent University in 2007, having already experienced a great deal of interdisciplinary collaboration. Her ongoing work alongside Professor Martin Shepperd involves working together with other universities and with industry.
According to Carolyn, the goal of her series of research projects with Professor Shepperd is to devise methods
to help IT project managers improve prediction practices through metacognitive training.
In 2008 the two researchers were awarded funding of £97,000 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The goal of their project was to empirically investigate the relationship between the personality and cognitive processes of professionals using case-based reasoning (CBR) tools.
Carolyn says, “Our industrial partner was EDS (now Hewlett Packard) who very kindly allowed their senior project managers to participate in our study. This pilot study revealed the importance of understanding the interaction of personality and cognitive behaviour of software professionals when studying the usefulness of CBR tools. Failure to do so results in an inability to understand the variability in problem solving performance. From our empirical analysis, we now know that the large variations in individual performance can be explained in terms of personality and other individual differences, and not just in terms of the problem or tool method characteristics.”
The latest proposal submitted to EPSRC was to fund a study investigating the relationship between metacognitive instruction and confidence and the effect of this interaction on prediction accuracy in software engineering. “Our industrial partners in this project are Hewlett Packard and Lloyds TSB,” says Carolyn. “In addition, we are very fortunate to have Professor Magne Jorgensen of Simula Labs (Norway) as our international collaborator. Simula Labs was ranked top research institute in the world for computer science by an annual survey conducted by the Journal of Systems and Software.”
The aim of the project is to investigate the impact of enhanced metacognitive awareness on prediction and confidence (uncertainty assessment), to improve the prediction practices of software professionals. This is accomplished by developing metacognitive awareness during a series of experiments with software professionals as participants.
The major outcomes will be a better understanding of (i) the factors that influence prediction and uncertainty assessment skills and (ii) how industry practice can be enhanced.
Carolyn says the findings will impact the software industry, its clients and other sectors where accurate predictions are required in uncertain environments. “We are adopting a multinational approach with this project as the software personnel are sited in Poland and Ukraine.”