arXiv subjects

Vasudha Malhotra

Publications and source records attributed to Vasudha Malhotra.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

They Call Her 'Miss' and Him 'Professor': Lived Experiences of Women Teaching Support Staff in IT/SE Education

Despite their critical role in shaping student learning in computing education, the contributions of women teaching-support staff (TSS) often go unrecognised and undervalued. In this experience report, we synthesise lived experiences of 15 women TSS in IT/SE higher education to illuminate how authority is earned, resisted, and maintained in everyday teaching. Participants shared both their positive and negative lived experiences associated with finding and losing voice with teaching team colleagues on the one hand, and rewarding connections and gendered friction with students on the other. We map these dynamics onto an intersectional "wheel of privilege and power" tailored to TSS roles. The farther a TSS profile sits from the wheel's center (e.g., non-native English, non-white, younger-seeming, non-permanent, early-career), the more relational, emotional, and disciplinary labour is needed to reach parity. We provide actionable insights and recommendations for creating more inclusive education environments in technology dominant fields that are particularly timely as universities worldwide grapple with post-pandemic teaching models and seek to build more inclusive and resilient academic communities.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

Who Uses Personas in Requirements Engineering: The Practitioners' Perspective

Personas are commonly used in software projects to gain a better understanding of end-users' needs. However, there is a limited understanding of their usage and effectiveness in practice. This paper presents the results of a two-step investigation, comprising interviews with 26 software developers, UI/UX designers, business analysts and product managers and a survey of 203 practitioners, aimed at shedding light on the current practices, methods and challenges of using personas in software development. Our findings reveal variations in the frequency and effectiveness of personas across different software projects and IT companies, the challenges practitioners face when using personas and the reasons for not using them at all. Furthermore, we investigate the coverage of human aspects in personas, often assumed to be a key feature of persona descriptions. Contrary to the general perception, our study shows that human aspects are often ignored for various reasons in personas or requirements engineering in general. Our study provides actionable insights for practitioners to overcome challenges in using personas during requirements engineering stages, and we identify areas for future research.

cs.SE↗

arXiv2023

Persona-based Assessment of Software Engineering Student Research Projects: An Experience Report

Students enrolled in software engineering degrees are generally required to undertake a research project in their final year through which they demonstrate the ability to conduct research, communicate outcomes, and build in-depth expertise in an area. Assessment in these projects typically involves evaluating the product of their research via a thesis or a similar artifact. However, this misses a range of other factors that go into producing successful software engineers and researchers. Incorporating aspects such as process, attitudes, project complexity, and supervision support into the assessment can provide a more holistic evaluation of the performance likely to better align with the intended learning outcomes. In this paper, we present on our experience of adopting an innovative assessment approach to enhance learning outcomes and research performance in our software engineering research projects. Our approach adopted a task-oriented approach to portfolio assessment that incorporates student personas, frequent formative feedback, delayed summative grading, and standards-aligned outcomes-based assessment. We report upon our continuous improvement journey in adapting tasks and criteria to address the challenges of assessing student research projects. Our lessons learnt demonstrate the value of personas to guide the development of holistic rubrics, giving meaning to grades and focusing staff and student attention on attitudes and skills rather than a product only.

cs.SE↗