Computer science students' conception of the relationship between reward (grade) and cooperation
Orit Hazzan · ACM SIGCSE Bulletin · 2003
The study presented in this article focuses on the conceptions of computer sciences students of the relationships between reward and cooperation in the context of software development. Specifically, students were faced with a conflict between their urge to express personal skills, and the unavoidable need to cooperate with their teammates. The results indicate that if a given financial bonus is distributed among team members, the majority of the students prefer that a small portion of the bonus be allocated based on individual contributions, while the majority of the reward is divided equally among the team members. These result are analyzed in the context of software engineering education. Based on this study, this paper suggests a tool which can be used by instructors, both for forming of teams and for team evaluation.